Artist

As with previous books in this series, Machat’s Law has been a constant and often unwelcome companion. The Law states (as some readers will know) that for any single type of airlin­er, no two individual aircraft are painted exactly the same; and very few carry their original paint scheme for the whole of their lives.

In recent years, Aeroflot’s enormous fleet of front-line air­craft — I exclude the feeder types, whose color schemes are legion — have carried more or less standardized markings. But this was not the case in years gone by, when Soviet aircraft design bureaux seemed to delight in individualism. Dozens of lettering styles were used for the word AEROFLOT, and I have identified a host of different versions of the airline’s logo. Fortunately (and unlike its U. S. counterpart) the Soviet flag remained constant.

In the size comparisons, I have used the Ilyushin 11-86, Aeroflot’s largest wide-bodied aircraft, roughly comparable with the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. — Mike Machat.