Ilyushin Il-18

Design work began in 1954, before the Soviet Council of Ministers issued the directive of 30 December 1955 instructing Kuznetsov and Ivchenko to develop new turboprop engines and Ilyushin and Antonov to design the aircraft that would use them. Two machines came out of that assignment, the Il-18 and the Antonov An-10. Ilyushin reused a designation already applied to a piston-engined four-motor transport of 1946 that never went beyond a prototype, but the new aircraft was an entirely fresh design: a low-wing monoplane with a circular pressurised fuselage, conventional tail and a tricycle undercarriage whose four-wheel main bogies rotated 90 degrees as they retracted. Two features stood out for the period: weather radar in the nose and the first automatic approach system fitted to a Soviet airliner.

The prototype was rolled out in June 1957, began high-speed runs on 1 July and flew on 4 July from Khodynka. The type was formally named Moskva and the name was painted on the fuselage, although it was dropped once series production started. Manufacture was assigned to Moscow Machinery Plant No. 30, which wound down Il-14 output to make room for the newcomer. Early aircraft used Kuznetsov NK-4 engines, which proved troublesome; in July 1958 the Council of Ministers decreed that all production from November that year would use the Ivchenko AI-20 and that earlier machines would be re-engined. On 17 September 1958 the first Il-18 flew with the new powerplant, with Vladimir Kokkinaki as test pilot. Only about twenty Il-18As were built before the improved Il-18B took over; the Il-18V appeared in December 1959 and 334 were built up to 1965, while the later Il-18I, Il-18D and Il-18E, powered by 3,169 kW AI-20M engines, pushed capacity to 122 seats.

Production totals vary with the source: the English article records at least 678 aircraft built between 1957 and 1985, while the Spanish one puts the figure above 850 machines produced between 1959 and 1978. What is not in dispute is the type's longevity. A commemorative monument was unveiled at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in April 1979; as of July 2018 seven Il-18s were still flying in airline service with six operators, and examples built in the mid-1960s remained in civilian use in Africa and south Asia as of 2014. The military derivatives have lasted even longer: the Il-22PP electronic warfare aircraft entered service in October 2016 and a modernised Il-20M followed in July 2020. One Interflug Il-18 used to carry East German leaders ended its days converted into a static hotel suite at Teuge Airfield in the Netherlands.