[Larry Lucido]

I did 10 hours once on an Ilyushin 62M that was older than its pilots, that is a scary plane, ditto for Tu154 and Tu134.

I flew an Ilyushin or Tupolev from Moscow to Aktau. I really don't know which one it was, but a fellow passenger told me it was an Ilyushin. The tires were visibly worn, the seats kind of flopped backward and forward, and there were no "overhead compartments" to speak of, just a shelf with a rope. Didn't dare use the bathroom. It was scary, but it beat walking.

[Central Scrutiniser]

The IL64 had 4 engines on the tail, it was a ripoff of the VC10. Luckily for me, I was on a good airline (Czech) that had no accidents in over 50 years of flying Russian built planes. The airline was embarassed because we were supposed to be on the new airbus, so they served the entire plane beer as we boarded, and the attendants were still serving with the carts as the plane took off from JFK! You should have seen them running back as we were rolling!

[Central Scrutiniser]

My first flight on a 777 was on EgyptAir from JFK-Cairo, about 3 months before a 767-300 took a swim on the same route....

[PAR35]

I've never ridden on an Ilyushin, but your description of the seats and interior sounds like a TU 154. Did the bottom of the seat pull up to allow for additional storage?