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| Indian IL-76 (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons) |
2012-11-30 — China has ordered 10 used Il-76s from Russia’s arms vendor Rosoboronexport as an interim measure to enlarge its fleet of the heavy airlifters, before the redeveloped Il-476 version becomes available. Sergei Kornev, head of Rosoboronexport’s aviation equipment department, told AIN that his company has already found seven suitable airframes on the secondary market. They are being overhauled before delivery to the PLA Air Force. Rosoboronexport is still sourcing the other three aircraft, which could come from non-Russian fleets.
Kornev declined to provide the exact number of Il-76s China has already received, noting only that Rosoboronexport and its Ukrainian counterpart, Ukrspetsexport, have been involved in sales of new and used Il-76s to the People’s Republic. In addition, the TAPO plant in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was the sole Il-76 production location since the 1970s, also supplied some aircraft to China. So did semi-independent Russian entities including LII, the flight-test and research institute, which sold China a couple of Il-76 testbeds outfitted with large rotating antennas mounted atop the fuselage. Presumably, these were the ones used in China’s AEW radar test program.
Read the full story at China Defense Mashup