Il-96 is a beautiful aircraft with an unfortunate fate and hope for revival

Soviet aviation did not have a long-range wide-body aircraft. Aircraft. The Ilyushin Design Bureau wanted to correct this unfortunate misunderstanding in the mid-80s. Although, if you look into it, the work began 10 years before that. The project was implemented in the form of an experimental Il-96. This happened in 1988. The model quickly passed tests and was recommended for serial production. To start it, several years and huge financial costs were required. And now it is enough to remember that in the USSR there was “perestroika”, and then the Soviet Union collapsed. Because of this, the Il-96 never became a fully serial one. They produced 1-2 copies per year. And then they abandoned the model altogether. This happened in 2013.

A couple of years later, they returned to the project, apparently considering that foreign companies might refuse to supply Boeing. As events in February 2022 showed, the fears were not unfounded. That's just the revived IL-96-400M and is produced in one copy. Until 2022, Russian private companies did not care - they had enough used Boeing. And now there is simply nothing to update the fleets. Therefore, the IL-96 has a chance for a revival. And you can learn more about this thanks to the video on the Aviasmotr channel.