The new aircrews of the Pacific Fleet’s Ilyushin Il-38N (NATO reporting name: May) antisubmarine warfare planes launched intensive operations from Yelizovo Naval Air Station in Kamchatka during the winter training period, the fleet’s spokesman, Roman Martov, told journalists on Wednesday.

"The crews are to do more than 10 training shifts to refine their airmanship and learn the latest capabilities of the upgraded plane and its Novella-P-38 mission suite," Martov said.

He noted that the upgraded Il-38N carried about 9 tons of war-load and its multiprocessor system had an aerial target acquisition range of 90 km, a submarine acquisition range of around 150 km, a surface target range of 320 km and a 50-target simultaneous tracking capability.

The Il-38N is an upgraded variant of the baseline Il-38 maritime patrol aircraft designed for searching for enemy submarines and sinking them with depth charges and torpedoes. In addition, the Il-38N can operate in the electronic intelligence, sea mine dispenser and search-and-rescue roles. The feature setting it apart from the baseline model is the Novella-P-38 search and targeting system that has boosted its searching capabilities over the baseline model by several times. The aircraft carries new-generation sonobuoys, an ELINT station and a thermal imager.