75 years of the Il-14P passenger aircraft

October 1 marked the 75th anniversary of the Il-14P passenger aircraft. On that day in 1950, the first model took flight.

The first prototype of the Il-14 took to the skies a little earlier, on July 15, 1950. The aircraft was a development of its predecessor, the Il-12, and was designed to meet the requirements of both military and civilian customers. It was equipped with a new wing, advanced flight and navigation equipment for its time, improved stability and controllability, and passenger comfort on board. Most importantly, the reliability and service life of the ASH-82T air-cooled piston engines, each with a power of 1,900 hp, were significantly increased.

The Il-14P could carry up to 32 passengers. It was 21.31 m long, had a wingspan of 31.7 m, a maximum take-off weight of 17.5 t, a maximum speed of 431 km/h, and a range of up to 1,600 km.

In the USSR, the aircraft was mass-produced at two aircraft factories, and was also built under license in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, where it was named Avia-14. A total of 1,348 units were produced in more than 30 variants and modifications. They served in airlines and law enforcement agencies in more than 30 countries, including Algeria, Bulgaria, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Mali, China, Cuba, Romania, and Hungary.

The Il-14 belonged to the last generation of piston airliners and earned a high reputation for its reliability and unpretentiousness. In civil aviation, these aircraft were initially operated as mainliners on routes of various lengths. At the same time, long-haul flights were performed with numerous intermediate stops. With the advent of more modern airliners with gas turbine engines, the Il-14 was transferred to local airlines and continued to be used for flights in the Arctic and Antarctic.

In Ukraine, the Il-14 was operated by the Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Lviv, and Simferopol combined air squadrons of Aeroflot, as well as the Kirovograd Higher Flight Training School. Some examples were still flying on airlines in the early 1970s.

The collection of the O.K. Antonov State Aviation Museum includes an Il-14P (Avia-14, serial number 04-03), which was manufactured in 1957 at an aircraft factory in Prague. It was operated by the Belarusian, Georgian, and East Siberian civil aviation administrations of the USSR. In 1980, it was transferred to the Kyiv Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers (now KAI), where it was used as a training model. The museum received it in 2003 in a very damaged condition, and the exhibit underwent a painstaking restoration. In memory of the operation of this type of aircraft in Polar Aviation, it was painted in accordance with the Il-14 that operated in Antarctica.