Russia’s heavily upgraded military transport plane performs debut flight

MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. The serial-produced Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A, a heavy upgrade of the Il-76 military transport plane, performed its debut flight on November 7, CEO of the Ilyushin Aircraft Company Alexei Rogozin said on his Facebook page.

“The Il-76MD-90A is the second generation of Il-76 military transport planes. The first flight was made in September 2012 and the first evaluation flight to test its compliance with the Defense Ministry’s requirements was conducted in December 2016. Yesterday, this was the first flight of the Il-76MD-90A with the factory No. 01-09 – the first serial-produced plane built in compliance with the performance characteristics of the Russian Defense Ministry,” Rogozin said.

The Il-76MD-90A produced at the Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP enterprise is a heavily upgraded version of the Il-76MD military transport plane.

The plane’s new version is outfitted with the PS-90A-76 engines that help reduce fuel consumption by 10%. The plane can carry a payload of 52 tonnes and operate at a distance of 5,000 km compared to 47 tonnes and 4,000 km, respectively, for the Il-76MD. It is capable of carrying a greater number of transportable and air-droppable military hardware.

The upgraded plane is designated to transport heavy large-size hardware and cargoes, and also to land personnel, hardware and cargoes.

The plane can also be used in emergencies areas, for example, for extinguishing fires. In October 2012, Russia’s Defense Ministry and the United Aircraft Corporation signed a contract worth 140 billion rubles ($2.1 billion) for the delivery of 39 Il-76MD-90A military transport planes to the Russian Armed Forces.