9/28/1988: Soviet Il-96 Widebody Makes Its First Flight

DALLAS — Today, in 1988, the Ilyushin Il-96 made its first flight with test pilot S.G. Blizniuk at the controls. The four-engine, long-haul widebody received its type certificate from the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) in December 1992, and passenger service began in July 1993.

The Il-96 is a shortened, long-range development of the Soviet Union's first widebody airliner, the Ilyushin Il-86. According to ch-aviation's account of the type, it brought a supercritical wing with winglets, a glass cockpit and fly-by-wire controls.

Aeroflot (SU) introduced the Il-96 in 1993 and flew its final Il-96 service on March 30, 2014, from Tashkent to Moscow Sheremetyevo. The airline had accelerated the retirement, citing the aircraft's poor economics, which left Cubana (CU) as the only commercial operator of the type, with three aircraft.

Cubana Ilyushin Il-96-300 CU-T1250 on the ground at Paris-Orly — Cubana (CU) Ilyushin Il-96-300 CU-T1250 at Paris-Orly in 2016. Photo: Anna Zvereva/CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Variants

The baseline Il-96-300 carries up to 300 passengers on PS-90A engines and flies with a three-person crew, according to Ilyushin.

In the 1990s, Ilyushin developed the Il-96M passenger version and the Il-96T freighter around Pratt & Whitney PW2337 engines. Flight International reported in 1995 that both would use a two-pilot flight deck from Rockwell's Collins division, replacing the three-person cockpit of the Il-96-300.

Economy class cabin of a Cubana Ilyushin Il-96 — Economy class cabin of a Cubana de Aviación Il-96. Photo: DomodedovoSpotters/CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A Stretched Revival

The newest variant is the Il-96-400M, a stretched passenger version whose first fuselage VASO joined in 2019. Its future looked doubtful two years later. In April 2021, the office of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said, as reported by Simple Flying, that "there is no order from airlines, and taking into account COVID-19 and the downtime of long-haul aircraft around the world, serial production of the Il-96-400M is not yet planned."

After sanctions made import substitution a priority for Russian aerospace, the program moved ahead. The prototype took off from Voronezh on November 1, 2023 for a 26-minute first flight on Aviadvigatel PS-90A1 engines. United Aircraft Corporation said the fuselage is 9.35m longer than the Il-96-300's and can seat up to 370 passengers.

Featured image: Aeroflot Il-96-300 RA-96008, the aircraft that operated the airline's final Il-96 flight in 2014.