Feb 26 1980
From The Space Library
A United Press International (UPI) report from Moscow said the Soviet Union had unveiled its 350-passenger airbus with a timesaving baggage compartment where riders would load and unload their own luggage. The Ilyushin 86, 20 feet wide and 193 feet long, carried 70 more passengers than the A-300 French/German airbus; it had maximum range of 3,000 miles and a cruising speed of 600 mph. It had been test-flown to the Black Sea area and to Tashkent and would begin regular service June 1 to Sochi, a resort area; the new plane would eventually absorb a fifth of USSR domestic passenger service, officials said, especially on peak Black Sea routes. The prototype flew in 1976, and full time construction began in 1977.
The new baggage-handling feature had a short ladder by which boarding passengers could reach a lower compartment with bins numbered to match their seats. After putting their luggage in the proper bin, they would climb to the passenger sections on an upper deck. Officials said the system tested in a mockup could load or unload all 350 passengers within 20 to 25 minutes. (Western aviation experts said the I1-86 was a gas-guzzler, its four "fuel inefficient" engines capable of generating only 28,000 pounds of thrust compared with 45,000 pounds for western widebody planes.) (UPI/W Star, Feb 280, C-11)
The Washington Star reported that cable television operators awaiting a replacement for the lost RCA Satcom 3 had found that they would need big new dish receivers for signals from the Comstar satellite RCA planned to lease. (W Star, Feb 27/80, C-3)
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