【エンジンだけがダメすぎた】迷旅客機列伝・イリューシンIL 86

Video from the channel akamomo航空チャンネル about Ilyushin Il-86, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 17:31. Video type: Documentary.

Japanese-language piece on the Ilyushin Il-86, the first Soviet wide-body aircraft, framed as a prelude to the story of the Il-96. Its thesis is that the aircraft's big problem was its engines.

Around 1971, with the 747, the TriStar and the DC-10 already in development, the USSR wanted its own high-capacity aircraft. Antonov proposed a roughly 600-seat model based on the An-22, which was rejected as outdated. Tupolev was busy with the Tu-144, so the task went to Ilyushin. The first design, from 1972, had four rear-mounted engines like the Il-62, but it was redesigned with under-wing engines. For airports without jet bridges, the aircraft had three access doors on the lower deck, space to store luggage on boarding, and three main landing gear legs. It first flew in 1976 and was presented at the 1977 Paris Air Show.

It was delivered to Aeroflot before certification was finished. The type certificate came on 24 December 1980 and the first commercial flight, between Moscow and Almaty, took place on 26 December, after the Moscow Olympics. Since the planned D-30 engine, with a bypass ratio of 2.4, was not ready in time, the Kuznetsov NK-86 was used instead, from the 1960s NK-8 family. The result was a high-consumption, short-range aircraft. Attempts to fit the Rolls-Royce RB211 failed, as did the plan to switch to the CFM56. 106 were built until 1991, almost all for Aeroflot, which retired them in 2006 after they were affected by ICAO's 2002 noise rules. The video highlights that it never suffered a fatal accident in commercial service.