The Kazakh alps provide a fine backdrop for some photos at Almaty. This Il-86 was completed in 11.84 and transferred from Aeroflot to Kazakstan Airlines in 1996, quickly passing on to Air Kazakstan. To East Line a matter of days after this shot and became RA-86144 in 6.02. Absorbed into Russian Sky in 5.05 but on CofA expiry early the next year, returned to Almaty for spares use and b/u 2014

Registered with the Kazakh directorate of Aeroflot in 5.91 and transferred to Kazakstan Airlines by 8.95. Stored 2003/4 but seen at U-Tapao in 12.05 with Yuzhnaya titles; wfu at ALA with titles painted out and broken up after late 2013

Flying on the spacious IL-86 was always a pleasure. Boarding is through a baggage storage area and up a staircase to the cabin floor. This one was delivered to China in 1993 and sold to Kras Air 10 years later. Stored at DME after use by Tatarstan and Kazan, still in basic CXJ colours, but scrapped 2013

This long-time Armenian IL-86 appeared with Armavia titles in 2005. Soon after this shot it was wfu at Voronezh and intriguingly the nose was cut off and transported to an armaments test range to be used in a experiment on 7.10.15. This imitated the shoot-down of flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014, a SAM missile similar to that suspected to have brought down the Malaysian 777 being fired at the nose section