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Russia · 1933–

Ilyushin

Ilyushin — officially the Ilyushin Aviation Complex, a public joint stock company, and also known as the Ilyushin Design Bureau — is a Russian aircraft manufacturer and design bureau founded in 1933 by Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin. Soviet and Russian nomenclature identifies its aircraft with the "Il-" prefix. Its head office is in the Aeroport District of Moscow's Northern Administrative Okrug. The company builds military, transport and civilian aircraft, and operates across the aerospace and defence sectors. Over its existence it has spun off two notable subsidiaries: Aviation Industries Ilyushin, created in 1992 as its marketing and customer service arm, and Ilyushin Finance Co, dedicated to leasing and financing both its own products and those of other manufacturers. Since 2006 Ilyushin has been part of the United Aircraft Corporation, the conglomerate the Russian government created by merging Mikoyan, Irkut, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Yakovlev and Ilyushin itself under a single structure. In July 2014 it was reported that Ilyushin and Myasishchev would combine to form UAC's Transport Aircraft business unit. Its shareholder structure reflects that integration: UAC holds 8.99 percent of the shares, UAC's Transport Aircraft unit 78.49 percent, and private investors the remaining 12.52 percent.

Updated: July 28, 2026

History

Birth under Soviet authority

Ilyushin came into being by administrative order. Its operations began on 13 January 1933 by order of P. I. Baranov, People's Commissar of Heavy Industry and head of the Main Department of the Aviation Industry. Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin was placed at its head, giving the bureau its name and the abbreviation behind every "Il-" designation the house has produced since. Its prototyping facility was built on Khodynka Field in Moscow, one of the historic sites of Russian aviation.

Recognition and consolidation

The bureau's standing in the Soviet period is recorded in the chain of state decorations awarded to its staff: the Order of Lenin in 1942, the Order of the Red Banner in 1944, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1969 and the Order of the October Revolution in 1983. That sequence traces the arc of Ilyushin's period of greatest institutional weight, from the war effort to post-war industrial maturity. In 1970 the post of chief designer passed to G. V. Novozhilov, who took over from the founder.

Diversification and corporate structure

With the post-Soviet transition, Ilyushin split its activity. In 1992 it set up Aviation Industries Ilyushin as a marketing and customer service subsidiary, a function the Soviet system had never required. To it was added Ilyushin Finance Co, a company dedicated to leasing and financial services that is not limited to the parent's products but also works with other manufacturers. Executive leadership has changed hands frequently: Viktor Livanov held the post of chief executive from December 1995 to May 2014, and since then it has passed through Yuri Yudin, Sergey Sergeev, Sergey Velmozhkin, Aleksey Rogozin (from May 2017 to April 2019), Yuri Grudinin and, as managing director since June 2020, Sergey Yarkov.

Integration into the United Aircraft Corporation

In 2006 the Russian government merged Ilyushin with Mikoyan, Irkut, Sukhoi, Tupolev and Yakovlev under a new company, the United Aircraft Corporation, with the declared aim of reviving the country's aircraft industry. Ilyushin did not disappear: it keeps its brand and its design role. In July 2014 its combination with Myasishchev was announced to form the group's Transport Aircraft unit, which today holds 78.49 percent of its shares.

Catalog — Aircraft

  • 1939

    Ilyushin Il-4 Sheet pending

  • 1939

    Ilyushin Il-2 Sheet pending

    Variants (11)
    • BSh-2
    • Il-2I
    • Il-2R
    • Il-2T
    • Il-2 (TsKB-57P)
    • Il-2 two-seat
    • Il-2U
    • Il-2 with M-82/M-82IR engine
    • Il-2 with NS-37
    • TsKB-55
    • TsKB-57
  • 1940

    Ilyushin DB-4 Sheet pending

  • 1943

    Ilyushin Il-8 Sheet pending

  • 1943

    Ilyushin Il-6 Sheet pending

  • 1944

    Ilyushin Il-10 Sheet pending

    Variants (6)
    • Avia B-33
    • Avia BS-33
    • Il-10
    • Il-10M
    • Il-10 (Turboprop)
    • Il-10U
  • 1944

    Ilyushin Il-1 Sheet pending

  • 1945

    Ilyushin Il-12 Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • Il-12A
    • Il-12B
    • Il-12D
    • Il-12P
    • Il-12T
  • 1947

    Ilyushin Il-22 Sheet pending

  • 1948

    Ilyushin Il-28 Sheet pending

    Variants (28)
    • B-228
    • B-5
    • B-56
    • B-5R
    • BT-5
    • CB-228
    • H-5
    • H-5A
    • H-5B
    • H-5 Ying
    • HD-5
    • HJ-5
    • HZ-5
    • Il-28
    • Il-28M
    • Il-28N
    • Il-28P
    • Il-28PL
    • Il-28R
    • Il-28REB
    • Il-28RM
    • Il-28RTR
    • Il-28S
    • Il-28Sh
    • Il-28T
    • Il-28TM
    • Il-28U
    • Il-28ZA
  • 1948

    Ilyushin Il-32 Sheet pending

  • 1948

    Ilyushin Il-20 (1948) Sheet pending

  • 1950

    Ilyushin Il-14 Sheet pending

    Variants (30)
    • Avia 14
    • Avia 14-24
    • Avia 14-32
    • Avia 14-40
    • Avia 14FG
    • Avia 14S
    • Avia 14 Super
    • Avia 14T
    • Il-14
    • Il-14FK
    • Il-14FKM
    • Il-14G
    • Il-14GGO
    • Il-14LIK-1
    • Il-14LIK-2
    • Il-14LR
    • Il-14M
    • Il-14P
    • Il-14PS
    • Il-14RR
    • Il-14S
    • Il-14SI
    • Il-14SO
    • Il-14T
    • Il-14TB
    • Il-14TD
    • Il-14TG
    • Il-14TS
    • VEB 14P
    • VEB 14T
  • 1952

    Ilyushin Il-46 Sheet pending

    Variants (2)
    • Il-46
    • Il-46S
  • 1953

    Ilyushin Il-40 Sheet pending

    Variants (4)
    • Il-40
    • Il-40K
    • Il-40P
    • Il-40T
  • 1955

    Ilyushin Il-54 Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Il-54R
    • Il-54T
    • Il-54U
  • 1957

    Ilyushin Il-18

    The Ilyushin Il-18 (NATO reporting name «Coot») is a four-engined low-wing turboprop airliner developed by the Soviet Ilyushin design bureau in the mid-1950s to meet an Aeroflot requirement for a medium-range aircraft seating between 75 and 100 passengers. The prototype, registered SSSR-L5811, took off from Khodynka on 4 July 1957 and on 10 July was flown to Vnukovo to be shown to a Soviet government commission alongside the Antonov An-10 and the Tupolev Tu-114. Aeroflot began passenger operations on 20 April 1959 on the Moscow-Sochi and Moscow-Alma Ata routes. Seventeen foreign carriers took delivery of some 125 aircraft with cabins seating 100 to 120, and the type became one of the signatures of air transport across the socialist bloc. Between 1958 and 1960 the Il-18 set twenty-five world records, including range and altitude marks with various payloads, and in 1958 it was awarded the Grand Prix of the Brussels World Fair. Durability became its trademark: many airframes passed 45,000 flight hours. The basic design spawned military derivatives such as the Il-20M electronic intelligence platform, the Il-22 airborne command post and the Il-38 anti-submarine patroller, which have kept the airframe flying long after its commercial career wound down. On long-haul routes its successor was the Ilyushin Il-62.

  • 1961

    Ilyushin Il-38 Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • Il-38
    • Il-38M
    • Il-38N
    • Il-38SD
    • ISD-38MZ
  • 1963

    Ilyushin Il-62

    The Ilyushin Il-62 (NATO reporting name «Classic») was the first long-range passenger jet built in the Soviet Union. Conceived in 1960 as a successor to the turboprop Il-18, it is a narrow-body quadjet with its engines paired on either side of the rear fuselage under a T-tail, a layout it shares only with the British Vickers VC10. With room for almost 200 passengers and crew, it was the world's largest jet airliner when it first flew. The prototype took off on 3 January 1963 fitted with interim Lyulka AL-7PB engines, because the intended Kuznetsov NK-8 turbofans were not ready; the first aircraft with the definitive powerplant flew in 1964. The Il-62 entered Aeroflot service on 15 September 1967 with an inaugural passenger flight from Moscow to Montreal and remained the Soviet standard on intercontinental routes for several decades. It was the first Soviet jet with six-abreast seating and the first with a pressurised non-circular fuselage cross-section. A total of 292 aircraft were built between 1963 and 1995, comprising five prototypes, 94 Il-62s and 193 Il-62Ms. More than thirty countries operated the type, over eighty examples were exported, and some fourteen nations used it as head-of-state transport. Its high operating cost compared with newer-generation airliners sharply reduced its commercial presence after the economic crisis of 2008.

  • 1971

    Ilyushin Il-76 Sheet pending

    Variants (29)
    • Baghdad-1
    • Baghdad-2
    • Il-76
    • Il-76D
    • Il-76K
    • Il-76LL
    • Il-76M
    • Il-76MD
    • Il-76MD-90
    • Il-76MD-90A
    • Il-76MDK
    • Il-76MDK-II
    • Il-76MD-M
    • Il-76MDP
    • Il-76MD Skal'pel-MT
    • Il-76MF
    • Il-76MGA
    • Il-76P
    • Il-76PP
    • Il-76PSD
    • Il-76T
    • Il-76TD
    • Il-76TD-90
    • Il-76TD-90VD
    • Il-76TDP
    • Il-76TD-S
    • Il-76TF
    • Il-76TP
    • Il-82
  • 1976

    Ilyushin Il-86

    The Ilyushin Il-86 (NATO reporting name «Camber») was the first wide-body airliner built in the Soviet Union. Designed by the Ilyushin bureau during the 1970s in response to the «aerobus» requirement issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, it is a low-wing quadjet with its engines slung on pylons beneath the wing, a configuration previously unused on large Soviet aircraft. Its most distinctive feature was the «luggage at hand» system: three lower-deck doors with built-in hydraulic airstairs let passengers board without a jetway and stow their own suitcases in below-floor lockers, a solution devised to avoid enlarging Soviet terminals that were too small for such an aircraft. The prototype flew at Khodynka on 22 December 1976 and the type entered Aeroflot service on 26 December 1980 with an inaugural flight from Moscow to Tashkent; the first international service, between Moscow and East Berlin, followed on 2 July 1981. A total of 106 aircraft were built between 1976 and 1991, of which one never flew and only three were exported, going to China Xinjiang Airlines in 1990. The lack of a suitable engine dogged the programme: range fell well short of the original target and became the aircraft's defining limitation. Withdrawn from commercial passenger service in 2011, it remains active in its Il-86VKP airborne command post form.

  • 1982

    Ilyushin Il-102 Sheet pending

  • 1983

    Ilyushin Il-78 Sheet pending

    Variants (7)
    • Il-78
    • Il-78-2
    • Il-78E
    • Il-78M
    • Il-78M-90A
    • Il-78MKI
    • Il-78MP
  • 1988

    Ilyushin Il-96

    The Ilyushin Il-96 is a four-engined long-haul wide-body airliner designed by Ilyushin in the Soviet Union and built by the Voronezh Aircraft Production Association. It is a shortened, longer-ranged and technologically advanced development of the Il-86, featuring a supercritical wing with winglets, a glass cockpit and fly-by-wire controls, with avionics allowing two-crew operation and ICAO CAT III/A landings. It was the first Russian aircraft never given a NATO reporting name. The first prototype flew on 28 September 1988 with Aviadvigatel PS-90A engines, and the first aircraft was handed over to Aeroflot on 29 December 1992. The Russian carrier took seven airframes between 1992 and 1994 and used them for non-stop links from Moscow to destinations such as Havana or San Francisco, beyond the reach of the shorter-legged Il-86. The Il-96-300 seats 262 passengers in a two-class layout with a range of around 11,000 km. The programme never achieved commercially viable output: in August 2009 the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade announced that manufacture of the Il-96-300 would cease, the type having been judged inferior to its Boeing and Airbus counterparts at a build rate of one aircraft a year. International sanctions after 2022 revived interest in the design. Today it serves as the main Russian presidential aircraft, Cubana de Aviación is its only remaining commercial passenger operator, and Sky Gates Airlines flies two Il-96-400T freighters.

  • 1990

    Ilyushin Il-114 Sheet pending

    Variants (11)
    • Il-114
    • Il-114-100
    • Il-114-300
    • Il-114FK
    • Il-114LL
    • Il-114MP
    • Il-114P
    • Il-114PR
    • Il-114T
    • Il-140
    • Il-140M
  • 1994

    Ilyushin Il-103 Sheet pending

  • 2019

    Ilyushin Il-112 Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Il-112T
    • Il-112V
    • Il-212
  • —

    Ilyushin DB-3 Sheet pending

    Variants (10)
    • DB-3 2M-85
    • DB-3 2M-86 (DB-3A)
    • DB-3 2M-87A (DB-3B)
    • DB-3F
    • DB-3M
    • DB-3TP (TsKB-51)
    • DB-3T (TsKB-53)
    • TsKB-26
    • TsKB-30
    • TsKB-54
  • —

    Ilyushin Il-80 Sheet pending

  • —

    Ilyushin Il-18 (1946) Sheet pending

  • —

    Ilyushin I-21 Sheet pending

    Variants (2)
    • TsKB 32
    • TsKB 52
  • —

    Ilyushin Il-16 Sheet pending