One of the showpieces of Aeroflot, the passenger-carrying offshoot of the Soviet air force, is a sleek turboprop called the Ilyushin-18. A four-engined, 405-m.p.h. plane that can carry up to 111 passengers nearly 3,000 miles without refueling, the
Il-18 is aeronautically more sophisticated than the Soviet's fuel-guzzling TU-104 jet, has far more commercial potential than the cumbersome turboprop giant TU-114. Unlike most Russian transports, its cabins seem to be properly pressurized, its furnishing spaciously luxurious; in flight, it is a smooth equal of comparable Western turboprops, the U.S. Lockheed Electra and Great Britain's...
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