Katerina Schwartz15:50, 25.12.24

It is noted that the aircraft turned out to be a monstrous and at the same time non-functional development, incapable of performing its main task.

Russia is disposing of a rare Il-76 PP jamming aircraft , a rather interesting and specific “monster” of Soviet design, which in theory should have been able to “jam” even American Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, writes Defense Express .

It is noted that the Russians tried to create an electronic warfare aircraft on the basis of this Il-76. Now the aircraft is being disposed of in an inglorious manner on the territory of a former training airfield in the city of Irkutsk, the reason being that it is necessary to free up space for construction.

“This aircraft was manufactured in a single copy, remained at the experimental development stage, and never went into serial production,” the publication says. “The serial transport aircraft Il-76MD was used for conversion into the Il-76PP, the work took place at the Beriev ANTK in Taganrog, which specializes in A-50 radar picket aircraft. It was assumed that the Il-76PP would be used primarily to “jam” the radars of Western air defense systems of various types, in particular the same Patrio.”

Defence Express suggests that the project was “buried” by the fact that the aircraft was equipped with the “Lily of the Valley” electronic warfare system:

“The fact is that the placement of the Landysh electronic warfare system on the Il-76PP required, in particular, the installation of additional power sources. To solve this problem, the aircraft designers installed two additional generators based on the AI-24VT aircraft engine, each of which was supposed to supply four alternating currents on board the Il-76PP. However, it seems that this was not enough to reliably power the electronic warfare equipment.”

In addition, as noted, during the course of work and testing, the Il-76PP designers were unable to achieve electromagnetic compatibility between the aircraft’s onboard equipment and the Lily of the Valley complex.

“In other words, the Il-76PP turned out to be a monstrous and at the same time non-functional development, incapable of fulfilling its main task, so in 1993 this aircraft was put into storage on the territory of the above-mentioned training airfield in Irkutsk. And, apparently, they “remembered” about this Il-76PP only when it was necessary to free up the space from it for construction, that is, at the end of 2024,” the publication stated.

Recall that earlier it was reported that in Russia the supply of low-quality bearings led to the failure of five Il-76 aircraft . We are talking about modernized aircraft intended for transporting troops and cargo.

In total, the Ministry of Defense had 18 such vessels at its disposal at the end of 2023. Most of them (11) were delivered in 2022-2023.

(C)UNIAN 2024