page_title: Ilyushin Il-86
section_title: Military operations
hierarchical_section_title: Ilyushin Il-86 / Operational history / Military operations
caption_attribution_description: English: 100th Anniversary of the Russian Air Force - Airborne command and control aircraft IL-86VKP.
context_page_description: The Ilyushin Il-86 is a short- to medium-range wide-body jet airliner. It was the USSR's first wide-body and the world's second four-engined wide-body. Designed and tested by the Ilyushin design bureau in the 1970s, it was certified by the Soviet aircraft industry, manufactured and marketed by the USSR.
  Developed during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev, the Il-86 was marked by the economic and technological stagnation of the era: it used engines more typical of the late-1960s, spent a decade in development, and failed to enter service in time for the Moscow Olympics, as was originally intended. The type was used by Aeroflot and successor post-Soviet airlines and only three of the total 106 constructed were exported. In service, it gained recognition as a safe and reliable model with no fatal incidents during three decades of passenger-carrying operations.
  At the beginning of 2012, only four Il-86s remained in service, all with the Russian Air Force.
context_section_description: With its built-in stairs and below deck holds, the Il-86 was widely expected to serve in the personnel transport role with the Soviet air forces: "The wide-bodied Il-86 can perform not only as a troop transport ... but may also in the future form the basis for a command and control aircraft for airborne coordination of Warsaw Pact forces."
  In the event, four airframes (c/n 042, 043, 046 and 048, carrying quasi-civil registrations SSSR-86146, '7, '8 and '9) were delivered to the 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division at the Chkalovsky air base near Moscow. These are variously claimed to be designated Il-80, Il-82, Il-87 or Il-86VKP (Russian: “ВКП” for “воздушный командный пост”; transliterated: "vozdushniy komandnyi post" “veh-kah-peh” and meaning "aerial command post"). This version has the NATO reporting name Maxdome.
caption: Il-86VKP in August 2012
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