Originally Posted by
pax britanica
Spotters of that era, me included , could tell which Malev IL 18 was on approach because they only had a small number of 'International/western IL18s and they all had different colour prop bosses. I think there were only 4 Yellow Red Blue and green . I saw HA -MOG at the 'veterans ' park at Budapest Airport bit coulndt really make out the prop boss colours
Probably some different configuration. Aeroflot, likewise, with their substantial fleet of various types, only had a small proportion allocated to the International Division, or "Directorate", based at Moscow, which did all the international flights from there, and were kept, together with their crews, separated from the larger internal fleet. Much of this was assigned to the various Directorates around the country, long term, possibly for much of the lifetime of the aircraft. Exceptionally, a few international flights were operated by the local Directorates, thus the Leningrad one operated the infrequent flight from there to Heathrow. Some Directorates could be identified by little livery variations from the standard.
Malev only had 8 IL-18, delivered 1960-67. One was lost in 1962, and one each in 1971, 75 and 77, so there were only 4 left after that time anyway to withdrawal in 1987 - OA, OE, OG and OI.