Thanks for the link, cficare, very interesting. Nothing like a bit of good old aviation archaeology.
I've been looking on Google Earth for an abandoned Il-76 in Afghanistan for a long time without success, like finding a needle in a haystack. Location is the problem, all I know is that the strip is/was in the south.
As the story goes, in the early days of the invasion, the U.S. military were planing an airfield site in southern Afghanistan and needed to fly in a large generator. The job was priced at between sixty and seventy thousand dollars and no one would touch it because it was an unprepared airfield with no fuel for the return trip, in an area mostly under hostile control. One day the charter agent got a phone call from an independent Il-76 crew offering to do it for two million dollars in advance. By this time, the Americans had no choice, so they paid the money.
And right on time, the ex Soviet crew flew in, unloaded the generator and sat down in the shade. As the Americans were wondering how they were going to fly out again, a mini bus driven by an Afghan pulled up in a cloud of dust and the Russian airmen piled in the back. As they were about to leave, the Yanks said, " Hey, how will you get the plane back? " The crew replied, " We won't. It's an old one we bought for the job and we're ditching it here."
Apparently it cost them half a million dollars and they patched it up just enough to get there, then walked off with close to one and a half million dollars profit.
It's supposed to be still there, but trying to track down any reference to it's whereabouts has been a bit fruitless so far.
Cheers, Willie.