Il-76/476 Military Transports

The Il-76 is (and still is) the best inits class. C-17 is a bigger aircraft and the AN-70 is significantly smaller. The IL-76 was ahead of its time when first introduced during the early seventies

Its production was in TAPO in Uzbekistan. The plant was closing down. Russia had to bring its production home because a lot of Russian aircraft component manufacturers (for their own survival)need that plane to be still made somewhere.
The Il-76 and its modifications (AWACS and refueling tanker versions) can be made in short time. No need to spend large sums and wait for years to get some other aircraft to do transport/early warning/tanker duties.

The Il-476 that will be produced in Aviastar (Ulyanovsk, Russia) can also be made in the stretched version. Combined with the more efficient wings, engines and a glass cockpit, it is a truely modern age transport/AWACS/tanker ready to be produced immediatly and with all the bugs cleared out long time ago.

As for the cargo load width. The Russians (and other countries) have been happily buying and using this plane in large numbers (about 1000 produced) over the decades. I guess cargo load width is not as great an issue as some would like to think.

The AN-70 doesn't come close: it still needs time and money to be fully developped, it will have its own set of bugs and issues to be dealt with, production will need some time to be ramped up. And you still need to spend huge sums to develop AWACS and tanker versions....and it still won't be able to transport a T-90 (let alone an Armata).

I am not against AN-70. It can find a niche in many roles such as being the main transport for the airborne VDV for example. But the Il-476 program is more crucial to Russia.

Well said.

Would say I have nothing against the An-70 either, but it seems to have magical numbers.

An F-16 can carry 7+ tons of external stores and can fly at Mach 2 and can fly a mission of up to 2,000 km, and can fly at x thousand feet altitude... but it can't do all these things at once.

A 7 + ton payload and it is a subsonic aircraft.

With the An-70, a rough field take off and it is a theatre transport carrying between 20 and 30 tons.

At about 3.4m wide the internal width of the Il-76 is marginal for the new Armata vehicles which will have three crew seated side by side in the front hull which means they might be wider than standard tanks, but at 55-65 tons they will only be driving one on board anyway.

The 47 ton payload limit of the An-70 will means upgraded T-72s only.

As I mentioned above they are working on a new jet engine in the 30 ton thrust class called the PD-30, which is just under double the thrust of the older engines fitted to the Il-76s. The potential for a future model Il-476 to have two engines removed and the remaining engines replaced with PD-30s would be interesting as this would greatly reduce drag with two less engines and also simplify maintainence and internal wiring and plumbing.

The potential for a new transport with three or four engines in the 90-110 ton class would make it interesting too.

The air transport option for Russian armour is emergency use only because it is expensive and vulnerable, but it would greatly increase mobility and flexibility in the field. With the planned and projected forces of An-70 and Il-476 they should be easily able to deploy light and medium units, with the An-22 or An-124 needed only for Coalition at 65 tons or to carry multiple smaller vehicles at a time.

A 90-110 ton class aircraft would be useful to free up An-124s for other duties... like carrying around truck mounted ballistic and cruise missile carriers on their TELs...

Excuse me but i would like to know this. In which cases russian transports will carry tanks? And where are they going to drop them? Russia engagement will be in caucasus, and central asia in case of civil wars. Power projection from the air in which cases? In mainland china? in germany>? in japan? Does russian air force need expensive transports like the US C-17?

George1 wrote:Excuse me but i would like to know this. In which cases russian transports will carry tanks? And where are they going to drop them? Russia engagement will be in caucasus, and central asia in case of civil wars. Power projection from the air in which cases? In mainland china? in germany>? in japan? Does russian air force need expensive transports like the US C-17?

It needs the capability just in case. A rapidly deteroriating situation in Pridnestrovie let's say; there are no armour units readily near the Black Sea coast that can be loaded up, and the Ukraine does not allow reinforcement through its territory. Or a small local war has already started somewhere in Central Asia between a couple of countries; armour is being used by both sides. Russia decides to step in but the VDV equipment alone is too light so it decides to airlift some heavy equipment.

Good answer Flamming Python.

I would also add that the new Armed forces of Russia are much smaller than those of the Soviet Union yet still have to cover the largest country in the world.

Having the ability to deploy any part of their military from one side of the country to the other in hours instead of weeks or months is an advantage.

Another important aspect is that the C-17 was designed to be congress proof. All the parts that make up the C-17 come from places all over America where there is very high unemployment. The plane was designed, not to be the best in its class, though it is very good. It was designed so that no senator in Congress would kill the program because it would mean jobs in their areas would be lost and that senator might lose their seat.

The US military no longer puts requests for C-17s in the budget because Congress votes for more to be made whether they ask for them or not.

It is this distributed production process that makes these aircraft ridiculously expensive... half a billion dollars for one transport!!!!
You could buy 3-4 Il-476s and 2 An-124s for that price and those 6 aircraft would be far more useful than one C-17 ever could be. The C-17 will be cheaper to run, but it wont be more useful... as I mentioned above most of the time most transport aircraft don't fly with max weights so most of the time the C-17 wont be carrying more than 40-50 tons... in other words it will be doing jobs much cheaper aircraft could do.

Some more info in Russian and photos here : http://topwar.ru/10412-il-476.html

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20121004/176407559.html

Russian Defense Ministry Signs Multi-billion-dollar Plane Contract

Russia's Defense Ministry on Thursday signed a contract worth about 140 billion rubles ($4 billion) to buy 39 IL-476 transport planes, President Vladimir Putin announced.

"This is the first, essentially new plane, that Russia's aviation industry has produced in the past 21 years" President Putin said "I am confident that this plane will enjoy great demand here, and among our possible partners abroad."

The Russian President made the announcement while watching the modified IL-76 undergo flight tests at the Aviastar-SP aviation complex in Ulyanovsk. The plane completed a flight test that lasted approximately 15 minutes.

Although externally the modernized plane bears a close resemblance to its predecessor, the new plane boasts modernized wing-construction, the body has been reinforced, and the engines updated. The on-board communication and navigation systems have also been updated.

Russia's rearmament program envisages the purchase of 100 of these updated planes, currently two have been built - one for flight tests, and a spare.

Excuse me but i would like to know this. In which cases russian transports will carry tanks? And where are they going to drop them?

BTW there is no way they would "drop" MBTs, or any vehicle in an armata brigade.

They will land them... ie if there was trouble in the southern district then vehicles might be deployed from the Far East by aircraft to airfields in the Southern District in a few hours to support operations.

It is strategic mobility in less time than it takes to move vehicles by train or ship.

The airborne forces will acquire more than 100 Il-76-МD-90А aircraft by 2020

The Russian airborne forces may acquire more than 100 advanced Il-76-МD-90А military-transport aircraft by 2020, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the airborne forces, Andrey Kholzakov said, Vzglyad.ru reports.

«The fleet of transport aircraft allows performing the combat training program in full including jumping from the heavy Il-76 jets. At present Il-76 is the main vehicle of the airborne forces. Nevertheless, we hope to take the deliveries of over 100 advanced Il-76-MD-90A jets by 2020», - Kholzakov siad.

He has also expressed satisfaction with the claimed performance of the new An-70 military-transport aircraft. «It is expected that An-70 will be more cost-efficient, because Il-76 is able to transport 3 combat vehicles, while An-70 can transport only two ones. However, the aircraft has not been delivered to us yet so it is rather hard to compare it with the existing vehicles. Judging by the claimed performance, I can say that we need this aircraft», - the general said

http://www.ruaviation.com/news/2012/11/22/1357/

I have been following the development of this aircraft for a while. I was wondering what happened to the Il-76MF, a stretched version which was marketed by Ilyushin a few years ago. It had some of the features of the Il-476 (PS-90 engines) and an enlarged fuselage. It was supposed to be built at TAPO but only a few samples were sold to Jordan.

The Il-76 is popular enough, but not many customers wanted to upgrade it.

From memory the figures were something like $800,000 US per engine for the old engines, while the new engines cost something like $6 million each because of the new technology and exotic materials.

As you can imagine that existing users might think twice about saving a few tons of fuel per year at the cost of $24 million per plane... especially when the old engines still worked OK and got the job done.

Obviously the price will have gone down a bit as the new technology is mastered and with the Russian AF buying them the economies of scale should kick in and reduce the cost.

In many ways the Il-476 is an upgraded Il-76MF with new avionics and materials etc.

It is certainly not as good as the C-17 in terms of raw performance, but in terms of price it is very hard to beat and is the most successful medium cargo jet of its era. In comparison the C-141 was largely a military only aircraft that private operators hardly even looked at, while the C-17 is simply too expensive to buy to consider for commercial use.

Would love to see them decide to continue the Il-106 with new engines as the retirement of the An-22 will leave a real gap, between the Il-476 and the An-124.

Internationally I think it would be a useful competitor for the C-17 and in terms of price the only civilian commercial option with the C-17 simply pricing itself out of the market.

a89 wrote:I have been following the development of this aircraft for a while. I was wondering what happened to the Il-76MF, a stretched version which was marketed by Ilyushin a few years ago. It had some of the features of the Il-476 (PS-90 engines) and an enlarged fuselage. It was supposed to be built at TAPO but only a few samples were sold to Jordan.

Like you said the problem was exactly that it was to be built at TAPO....after finishing several Il-114s the factory will cease aircraft production entirely.
The RuMOD has no need for a longer fuselage I suppose.

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, January 29 (RIA Novosti) - A prototype Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A (also known as the Il-476) heavy-lift transport plane completed its first prolonged test flight on Tuesday, its manufacturer Aviastar said.

The flight, which lasted four hours and 25 minutes at altitudes of up to 10,000 meters (33,000 feet), was designed to assess the performance of its onboard avionics, engines, automated control system, and other characteristics, Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar said.

The prototype will soon be sent to the Zhukovsky flight test center near Moscow for further trials.

The Il-76MD-90A is an extensively modernized version of the forty-year-old Il-76 military transport aircraft, fitted with a new wing, fuel-efficient high-bypass Aviadvigatel PS-90A turbofans, and a modernized cockpit with so-called "glass cockpit" displays, allowing the flight crew to be reduced to three people.

Russia's Defense Ministry signed a contract last October for delivery of 39 Il-76MD-90As, to be built before 2018.

Aviastar hopes to build up to 100 such aircraft by 2020 for Russian state customers, the company has previously said.

New-built Il-476 (Il-76MD-90A)

Russian Air Force to Get 48 Il-476 Transports

MOSCOW, February 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Air Force's Military Transport Aviation (MTA) will receive a total of 48 Ilyushin Il-476 heavy transport planes by 2020, rather than the previously stated 39, its commander Col. Gen. Vladimir Benediktov said on Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said last October it had signed a contract worth about 140 billion rubles ($4 billion) with Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) for the delivery of 39 Il-476 planes by 2020.

“The MTA will receive its first series-produced [Il-476] planes by 2014, and a total of 48 by 2020,” Benediktov said.

The Il-476, (also known as the Il-76-MD-90A) is a significantly modernized variant of the Il-76 Candid transport plane, featuring a fully-digital flight control system, new avionics and PS-90A-76 engines with improved fuel efficiency systems.

A prototype of the plane carried out a maiden flight from the Aviastar plant in Ulyanovsk in September and will undergo a comprehensive test program for another year.

The Russian military has not received significant numbers of new large transport planes in the past 20 years.

From - Ria-Nosti

I hope this is not happening because An-70 will not be acquired.

The An-70 probably will be acquired in one form or another... I suspect this is all just part of the hard ball negotiations necessary to get a good deal.

Rate of production of IL-476 will increase to 16-18 by 2017


LINK

http://fotografersha.livejournal.com/402276.html

Superb Il-76MD-90A photos. 

Real toilet inside!

http://alexeyvvo.livejournal.com/39323.html

Il-76MD-90A VVS delivery plan.

Russia to Get First 3 New Il-476 Cargo Planes in 2014

MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti) - The first three modernized Ilyushin heavy-lift transport planes will be delivered to the Russian Defense Ministry in 2014, the aircraft’s designer said on Tuesday.

Ilyushin Aviation Complex said the prototype Il-476, also known as Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A, made the first in a series of trial flights on Monday at a testing center near Moscow.

“The flight lasted one hour and 55 minutes at altitudes between 2,000 and 10,000 meters,” the company’s press service said.

The promise that three planes could be delivered by next year marks a more ambitious target than that set by Ilyushin general director Viktor Livanov, who told Ekho Moskvy radio station earlier this month that the goal was for two aircraft.

A planned test flight last week was postponed due to bad weather.

Ilyushin says the test program will consist of a series of 22 flights. Technicians will collect and process data after every flight to make any required improvements.

The Il-476 is a modernized version of the Il-76 Candid transport plane and features a new wing, a fully digital flight control system, a new cockpit with advanced digital displays and PS-90A-76 turbofans with improved fuel efficiency, according to state-run aerospace holding United Aircraft Corporation.

Russia's Defense Ministry signed a contract last October for the delivery of 39 Il-476s, to be built before 2018.

UAC said on Tuesday it was in talks with the Defense Ministry over a contract for an unspecified number of Il-78 tanker aircraft, which are modeled on the Il-76MD-90A.

Aviastar, which manufactures the Ilyushin, says it hopes to build up to 100 Il-76MD-90As by 2020 for Russian state customers.

Does anybody know of plans to adapt PD-14 to the Il-476?
I am particularly thinking of future IAF (India) plans for AWACS, A-100 being possible Russian offer.

- A year ago, AK Ilyushin received an offer from the United Engine Corporation see PD-14 engine. We are using the characteristics of the engine, have calculated what performance characteristics are the Il-476. Yes, with a PD-14 with the proviso that all of the DCS withstand characteristics defined in the project, our plane becomes more economical. Range will increase by one thousand kilometers and reduced fuel consumption. So as a further development of Il-76MD-90A, we consider the installation of advanced engine PD-14.

In another thread ( https://www.russiadefence.net/t1920p750-vvs-news-photos ) Austin posted this link

http://vpk.name/news/107407_polet_v_budushee.html

which includes this paragraph:

- A year ago, AK Ilyushin received an offer from the United Engine Corporation see PD-14 engine. We are using the characteristics of the engine, have calculated what performance characteristics are the Il-476. Yes, with a PD-14 with the proviso that all of the DCS withstand characteristics defined in the project, our plane becomes more economical. Range will increase by one thousand kilometers and reduced fuel consumption. So as a further development of Il-76MD-90A, we consider the installation of advanced engine PD-14.

It also had this paragraph too:

As for anti-submarine aircraft, it should be well patrol. For example, IL-38 can patrol at least 11 hours. But the Il-476, this figure is much worse. To be honest, there is better suited IL-114, for which we stand. Flight experience on this machine shows that IL-114 can patrol at least 14 hours. And more, we see no alternative. Of course, the Americans made a new anti-"Poseidon" on the basis of "Boeing-737-800." But at the same time they leave in the ranks and the entire fleet of turboprop P-3 "Orion", made, as we remember, on the basis of civil aircraft "Elektra" by "Lockheed." Problem posing sonar buoys, low-altitude search, etc. has not been removed. And the U.S. military is well aware.

Note all Il-38s will get the Sea Dragon upgrade which should make them effective to 2020 or so.

Russian Ministry of Defense will take delivery of the first Il-76MD-90A aircraft in 2014

Russian Ministry of Defense will take delivery of the first military-transport Il-76MD-90A aircraft in 2014, Lenta.ru reports.

The jet will be delivered by Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP under a contract for delivery of 39 Il-76MD-90A aircraft. Other details related to the upcoming delivery have not been unveiled.

The first stage of the joint state testing of the new military-transport Il-76MD-90A aircraft has been completed in December 2013. The functionality of all the aircraft systems has been checked and the aircraft performance has been assessed. The second stage will include testing of the aircraft’s avionics and communications systems. Il-76MD-90A will also perform a cargo airdrop.

The joint state testing of the military-transport Il-76MD-90A aircraft has been started in July 2013. It was reported that following the results of the first stage of testing Russian Ministry of Defense would approve the act for production of a pilot batch of Il-76MD-90A jets. This document will allow Aviastar-SP to launch the serial production of the new transport aircraft.

Il-76MD-90A was derived from Il-76MD. The jet performed its maiden flight in September 2012. The aircraft is powered by new PS-90A-76 engines and it also has a reinforced wing. Its maximum flight speed is 850 km/h and its maximum payload is 60 tons. The jet’s range is about 6000 km. It is planned to develop a tanker aircraft derived from Il-76MD-90A.

According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian air forces, Lieutenant General Viktor Bondarev, the new tankers will be designated as Il-478. In April 2014 Deputy CEO of UAC – Transport Aircraft, Olga Fedonyuk said that the company plans to sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense for delivery of 31 Il-478 aircraft this year.

Another piece of the puzzle is falling in its place   

The first production Il-76MD-90A is fully assembled