The original of this mold novelty was registered for China Xinjiang Airlines (CXJ) as B-2018. The first plans for a Soviet pendant to the Boeing 747 were developed around 1968 and the result was a very crude airplane, which was performance-wise clearly inferior to the 747, and didn’t stand a chance, technically, against newly developed western jets like DC-10, L-1011 or Airbus A300. Even companies from the former Eastern Bloc like LOT, CSA or Interflug couldn’t do anything with it, so CXJ became one of the very few airlines to operate the IL-86 outside the former Soviet Union.
