When I was at school, I remember discussing which way to head if the alarms went off. Straight towards West Wycombe was the most popular view: get it over with quickly, by going straight towards the places which would be nuked first.

We were lucky, when I was at school, our history teacher used to tell us that we would be instantly vapourised because we were located next to Heathrow Airport 🙂

You are thinking of Aeroflot in western terms……

It isn’t (or wasn’t) an airline like we in the west think of a commercial airline.

It was a transport arm of the state – and used for military transport duties.

Even now in post-communist Russia, the ‘Air Force’ Il-76 transports, Il-18s, Il-86/96s, An-74s etc etc are all still in the old Aeroflot livery – and none of them are ‘airliners’.

Ken

Wouldn’t that have made them potential targets in the event of a NATO/Warsaw pact conflict? If so, that could have resulted in actual ‘airliners’ carrying passengers being targeted? Or was there a system in place to differentiate those platforms used solely for passenger carrying duties and those used for military purposes?

Thanks Insig, but I was particularly referring to the H-2 stand off weapon, much has been talked about this, but no pictures or videos to date, was hoping to see something, especially if it was used during High Mark 2010.

Also, I love this pic of a PAF F-7 sporting a great looking tiger livery, never seen anything like this before on a PAF fighter. Reminds me of the special schemes applied to aicraft participating in the Tiger Meet excercises.

First of all:
Excuse me please, for my mistake. The image, posted earlier, shows the Ilyushin Il-80 aircraft (not Il-82) !

Hey no probs, trust me, I was none the wiser 🙂

Thanks again for all the details, very interesting info.

On Your second question:
– Four Il-80 planes were built in total, as fully new machines (not rotation). They uses for military purposes only, and are in inventory of Separate squadron of control and retranslation. Those aircraft are secret, and I think, the “AEROFLOT” livery is painted for “disguise” purposes.

Would it really be possible to disguise their roles by simply having an Aeroflot livery? What about all the large fairings and pods on the aircraft, surely that is a dead give away and renders any ‘diguising’ attempts as useless?

Some more…

[QUOTE=Al;1559659]141292 has seen better days – a sad end to an awesome aircraft.
VAQ-33 was tactical electronic warfare squadron – there is an account of this aircraft’s 150+ antenna here:
http://www.reenactor.net/vaq-33/connie.html

Al, thanks for the details, that’s a very insightful site, makes for some interesting reading 🙂 I do agree though, very sad to see such a historic aircraft which is no longer with us.

Flyer, thanks for that interesting pic, what are those two very large pods under the hardpoints on the wing, a housing for equipment or extra fuel? Also, how did the operation of the command post tie in with the civilian roles the aircraft flew for Aeroflot? was there some rotation or was the aircraft used as and when required?