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Titled "Type 27", the USAF/DoD reporting name for the Ilyushin Il-28 jet bomber, this poster profiles the aircraft's comparative silhouettes, recognition points, and specifications.

In the immediate post-war period and to appease a wartime ally, Prime Minister Clement Attlee permitted the sale and export of 40 Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines to the Soviet Union under a 1946 trade agreement, which stipulated they could not be put to military use. As hostilities quickly increased, the Nene engine was reverse-engineered and developed into the Klimov RD-45 and, after a few improvements, the VK-1. In 1949, the Ilyushin Il-28 went into full production with VK-1 engines, allowing 25 to be exhibited at the Moscow May Day parade of 1950.

Soviet Aviation Industry

Russia entered aviation in 1910 with Igor Sikorsky's S-1; the field proved a less capital-intensive endeavor than improving the rail network across the vast country. After Stalin's push for industrialization in his First Five-Year Plan, his Second Five-Year Plan (1932-1938), which gave heavy industry, particularly the steel industry, top priority, helped further the Soviet Union's aviation industry. In 1931, a cohort of 65 students was sent to top universities in the United States. The most notable among them was Stanislav Shumovsky, who attended MIT and remained in the country for over a decade, escorting prominent engineers such as Andrey Tupolev, Sergei Ilyushin, and Pavel Sukhoi around numerous universities, research labs, and aviation facilities. Stalin called for his engineers to "fly higher, farther, faster" and in 1933 had August 18th designated as the date of a yearly Aviation Day, the same year the United States officially recognized the Soviet Union. In 1936, the Soviet government was able to secure a license from Douglas to produce DC-3, under the designation Lisunov Li-2. By the end of World War II, Ilyushin's Il-2 became the most-produced combat aircraft, with 36,183 manufactured.