Ilyushin/Beriyev A-50

Brought out in the late 1970s as a successor to the obsolete Tu-126 airborne early warning aircraft, the A-50 co-developed by the Il'yushin and Beriyev bureaux is one of the most interesting military variants in the field of IL-76 military transport. Differing outwardly from the latter mainly in having a conventional saucer rotodome, the A-50 entered flight testing in 1980; the new Soviet AWACS entered service four years later. The improved A-50M was developed several years after that. The type