The Ilyushin Il-86 (Russian: Илью́шин Ил-86; NATO reporting name: Camber) is the USSR's first wide-bodied aircraft and the world's second four-engined wide-bodied aircraft. 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. Many airports had terminals too small for "aerobuses". In the West, the solution to this involved constructing greater airport capacity.[11] By contrast, Soviet aviation research institutes addressed ways of increasing passenger throughput without the need for additional airport capacity. Many Soviet airports also had surfaces too weak for "aerobuses". The Soviet solution again favoured adapting aircraft to existing conditions, rather than reconstructing airports. The aerobus thus had to match the ground loadings of existing airliners. This called for complex multi-wheel landing gear. The Soviet solution to the airport capacity issue involved passengers loading and unloading their own luggage into and from the aircraft. This was eventually called "the luggage at hand system" (Russian: "система «багаж с собой»"; transliterated: "sistyema bagazh s soboy"). Soviet aviation journalist Kim Bakshmi described it (at its ultimate) thus: "One arrives five minutes prior to departure, buys oneself a ticket on board the aircraft, hangs one's coat next to the seat and places one's bag or suitcase nearby.". Taking suitcases into the cabin, as in trains, was studied, but necessitated a 3 m fuselage extension with a 350-seat capacity. To avoid this, passengers were to deposit their luggage in underfloor compartments as they entered the airliner. Thus the aircraft had the unusual feature of three airstairs entering the aircraft at the underfloor level, one in front of the wing and two behind. For more information on the development, design and operational history, click here.
