Ilyushin Il-54

OKB-115 (Ilyushin Design Bureau)

Industry	Aerospace, Military aviation
Founded	1933
Founder	Sergey Ilyushin
Headquarters	Soviet Union

"Il-54" redirects here. For the road, see Illinois Route 54.

The Il-54 was a transonic bomber developed during the 1950s in the Soviet Union. The program produced only two units before being discontinued.

Design and development

In July 1954, the Council of Ministers tasked OKB-115 with delivering a transonic bomber prototype for State Acceptance Trials. The bomber's design evolved through multiple iterations before finalizing its configuration.

The completed Il-54 featured a sharply swept wing set at a 45-degree angle with anhedral, positioned high on the fuselage as a shoulder-mounted wing. It was powered by Lyulka AL-7 engines installed in slender pods mounted on pylons approximately one-third along the wingspan. Due to the limited size of the wings and engine nacelles, a traditional landing gear could not be accommodated. Consequently, the Il-54 employed a bicycle-type undercarriage, with nose and main landing gear aligned along the aircraft's centerline at opposite ends of the bomb bay. This arrangement prevented a standard rotation during takeoff; to compensate, the main gear could kneel and the nose gear could extend, adjusting the aircraft’s angle of incidence to 10 degrees for takeoff within a reasonable runway length.

Flight testing began in April 1955, piloted by test pilot Vladimir Kokkinaki. Handling issues experienced during landing runs were resolved by revising the undercarriage design.

The Il-54 did not enter production due to competition from derivatives of the Yak-25 and prevailing views that manned bombers would soon be supplanted by missile technology.

Although scheduled to participate in the 1956 flypast at Tushino Airfield, the Il-54 was removed from the event. Subsequently, it was exhibited to a US military delegation at Kubinka, where it was deliberately misidentified as the Il-149 as part of a deception strategy. This led to an overestimation of its significance by Western observers, who assigned it the NATO reporting name ("Blowlamp") after it had already ceased flight operations.

Variants

Information source:OKB Ilyushin

• Il-54T – Proposed torpedo bomber model
• Il-54U – Trainer variant (conceptual stage)
• Il-54R – Reconnaissance aircraft designed for photographic missions (project stage)