Spotted in a showcase at the departure level in the Edmonton International airport. Interestingly enough, I saw two real Ilyushin-76s at Edmonton not too long ago. One of them was wearing exactly the same livery, - of Russian cargo airline called ‘Volga-Dnepr’. Unfortunately, it was dark, and I didn’t have a chance to make a good shot of it.
This company is known in the world for being a unique specialist flying ‘outsized cargo’ by a fleet of huge Antonov-124 freighters. They are pretty common guests here in Canada too. Last November I caught a sight of one parked on a cargo ramp at Calgary airport.
Il-76s are more rare birds on this side of Atlantic. Those two that I spotted that night looked to me as the examples of modified versions of this fairly old design. Along with their effort and investments into a program of building the ‘New Generation Antonov-124′, Volga-Dnepr has given a consideration to an idea of putting the new engine on a number of Ilyushin-76s. And it has proved to be quite a reviving ’shot in the arm’ for the aging type. More fuel efficient and less noisy PS-90A did a nice trick 
I’ll try to find more detail on the current status of the ‘Il-76MF’ program. Apparently, the re-engined plane is more welcome in ‘noise sensitive’ places, and its range has increased sufficiently. Perhaps, not without influence of these two factors been put into the play, we are about to see this ‘Russian ultimate bush plane more often here, in large North American cities’ airports
However, I’m wondering how this model found its way into the display at the Edmonton International..
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