Dark Roasted Blend: Presidential Planes, Part 1: Putin's New Plane

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Presidential Planes, Part 1: Putin's New Plane

"QUANTUM SHOT" #95

1. Putin's brand-new IL-96-300

- or should it be called "Air Force Two"?

Construction of this plane, the equivalent of America's "Air Force One", started in Voronezh several years ago.A Bristol firm "Diamonite Aircraft Furnishings" has won a £10m contract to refurbish the Russian presidential plane.

"All technical information on the closed project is a state secret," Russian NTV Mir television told viewers. Well, now's the time to show you the first leaked-out pictures of the top-secret interior.

In-flight Bible:

Sources: BBC, Hectop, Kommersant

2. Russian Presidential Helicopter

From the same source come these leaked-out pictures of Mi-8MTV-1 helicopter. The interior seems to echo the style of Mr. Putin's jet.

3. Previous Russian Presidential Planes:

"Aeroflot" has six Ilyushin 96 (like the one shown below) in its fleet.

Previous Russian presidential planes included IL-62M:
(Photos from JetPhotos and FlightForum)

and IL-96 (Boris Eltzin's plane) which will stay in service as a backup plane:
It's current price is estimated 300 million dollars (40 million spent on interior only). Photos by Carsten Blumel

Fidel Castro's Presidential Plane

The camaraderie between some political leaders extends quite far:
Castro's new plane Ilyushin Il-96-300 was imported from Russia, and even has the same interior design and upholstery colors (read BBS article)

CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 OF THIS ARTICLE! ->

Read the whole Best of Russia popular DRB series!

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COMMENTS::

4 Comments:

Avi Abrams said...: Feedback comments about the site were moved to "About" page; ___
Julia said...: Hey, interesting post. I like that they at least have seatbelts everywhere.; ___
Vonsmalhausen said...: the Tsaars are back ...; ___
IdeaLog said...: Every big leader has plane like this one. It's just a matter of international prestige.; ___

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