The Il-76 uses similar engine technology to the MiG-31. That was also based outside Ukraine. That is likely one of the reasons why it was kept.
It was also used in Tupolev commercial airliners back then.
In the 1990s the Russian state under Yeltsin was barely keeping it together. There was little money to fund complex projects. A lot of the heavy bombers were basically mothballed with little prospects for future upgrades. Most of the (few) orders were exports. When you look at the spectrum of products you can actually manufacture and the numbers required plus the amount of systematic failure caused by the loss of a specific engine model it is little surprising, at least to me, they made the choices they did.
You can look at the Il-276 as an example of things to come. It is a T-tail high winged transport aircraft.
It is planned to use the PD-14M engine which will be common with the Irkut MC-21 narrow body airliner.
It is a twin turbofan aircraft in a similar weight class to the quad turboprop C-130J or more similarly to the Kawasaki C-2.
I expect a similar, albeit larger, design to be made with either quad PD-14M or dual PD-35 engines over the next decade to replace the Il-76.
Once Il-112 twin-turboprop work is done, the prototype has already been presented, they should start work on the Il-276 in earnest. This might take, in my estimates, 5 years. After that work on the larger transport aircraft should proceed. I do not consider this to be a bad schedule since the PD-35 engine has still not been developed.
It was also used in Tupolev commercial airliners back then.
In the 1990s the Russian state under Yeltsin was barely keeping it together. There was little money to fund complex projects. A lot of the heavy bombers were basically mothballed with little prospects for future upgrades. Most of the (few) orders were exports. When you look at the spectrum of products you can actually manufacture and the numbers required plus the amount of systematic failure caused by the loss of a specific engine model it is little surprising, at least to me, they made the choices they did.
You can look at the Il-276 as an example of things to come. It is a T-tail high winged transport aircraft.
It is planned to use the PD-14M engine which will be common with the Irkut MC-21 narrow body airliner.
It is a twin turbofan aircraft in a similar weight class to the quad turboprop C-130J or more similarly to the Kawasaki C-2.
I expect a similar, albeit larger, design to be made with either quad PD-14M or dual PD-35 engines over the next decade to replace the Il-76.
Once Il-112 twin-turboprop work is done, the prototype has already been presented, they should start work on the Il-276 in earnest. This might take, in my estimates, 5 years. After that work on the larger transport aircraft should proceed. I do not consider this to be a bad schedule since the PD-35 engine has still not been developed.
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