Another new Il-76MD-90A finally in the air
On 26 August 2020, a new Il-76MD-90A military transport aircraft made its first flight at the Ulyanovsk-Vostochny plant airfield complex. The aircraft with registration number RF-78659 (serial 0204) was built at the JSC Aviastar-SP (part of the Transport Aviation Division of the JSC United Aircraft Corporation) and it is the sixth transporter built by JSC Aviastar-SP in Ulyanovsk under a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence.
This contract, signed in October 2012, is for the production of 39 Il-76MD-90A transport aircraft totaling USD 1.84 billion (139.42 billion rubles). In May 2020, this contract has been renegotiated and the supply of Il-76MD-90A military transport aircraft has been split. Under the new conditions, the Aviastar-SP plant will deliver thirteen Il-76MD-90A aircraft by 2021 and a new contract will be signed calling for additional fourteen aircraft with deliveries until 2028.
The Il-76MD-90A that flew late August 2020, was already rolled out to the Aviastar-SP flight test station at the end of March 2020, yet it took another five months to get it in the air. It is the second aircraft completed in 2020, following the one registered RF-78658 (serial 0203), which made its maiden flight at the Ulyanovsk-Vostochny plant airfield on 17 March 17 2020. The transporter has not yet been handed over to the customer and it still continues acceptance flights. These circumstances indicate that the production programme for the Il-76MD-90A aircraft is running with some serious issues.
The first new-built Il-76MD-90A aircraft for the Russian MoD under the original 2012 contract, registered RF-78654 (serial 0108), was built at Aviastar-SP more than four years ago and handed over to the MoD in January 2016. Since then, only new Il-76MD-90A aircraft have been reaching the units of the Russian Federation - Aerospace Forces (RF VKS). Before that, Aviastar-SP built three Il-76MD-90A aircraft of the pilot batch (serials 0103-0105) in the period 2014-2015. The first two aircraft were transferred to PJSC The Beriev Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex (TANTK) to develop a special-purpose aircraft. Thus far, the Aviastar-SP plant has built a total of ten units (including the prototype) of the Il-76MD-90A military transport aircraft plus one prototype of the Il-78M-90A aerial tanker (registration number RF-78741, serial 0201).
Photos: Sergey Knyazevskii and Ivan Zubov/AviMedia, both via RussianPlanes.net