MOSCOW. Feb 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia's Air Force is due to start modernizing its Ilyushin Il-78M aerial refueling tankers this year, a defense industry source said on Monday.
The modernization project is expected to be carried out at the Aviastar-SP plant in Ulyanovsk and finish next year, with state trials after that, the source told Interfax-AVN.
The jets would be fitted with better refueling equipment and have their D-30 engines with a thrust of 12 tonnes replaced with PS-90A-76 engines, with 14 tonnes of thrust, the source said.
The modernized tanker might receive the designation Il-78M2 or Il-78M-90A.
An aircraft-manufacturing plant in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, built 45 Il-78 and Il-78M tankers before 1991. Early last year, Russia's Long-Range Air Force had eight Il-78's and 12 Il-78M's in its fleet.
The Il-78 has a maximum takeoff weight of 190 tonnes and can refuel one heavy or two tactical aircraft per flight. It can pour up to 65 tonnes of fuel into them during a flight of 1,000 kilometers but half the amount during a journey of 2,500 kilometers.
The Il-78M is a modernized version of the Il-78 with a range nearly twice that of the Il-78 and can take in 4 tonnes more fuel than those of the Il-78 in each tank.
In 2012, Russia's Il-78 and Il-78M tankers carried out 380 refueling missions, supplying other aircraft with more than 5,000 tonnes of fuel.
Today Ilyushin Aviation Complex, the manufacturer of Ilyushin aircraft, is working on modernization documents for the Il-78M, the defense industry source said.