MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. The United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (UIMC) plans to start developing third-generation airborne command posts in 2017, the company's CEO Alexander Yakunin told TASS on Thursday.

"We plan to start works on the next generation of these planes in 2017," Yakunin said.

Last year, The United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation delivered the first Ilyushin Il-80M second-generation airborne strategic command post to the customer, he said.

"Now the plane has been made operational and has already taken part in the first exercises where it has successfully performed a number of missions as part of the Armed Forces’ operational training," the CEO said.

Polyot R&D Enterprise CEO Alexei Komyakov announced in August last year about the development of third-generation airborne command posts. Later, Yakunin said the third generation of airborne command posts also known as doomsday planes would appear in Russia in five-seven years.

The United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation said later that such planes would be developed on the basis of the Il-96-400 aircraft.

Airborne command posts were called doomsday planes in the United States: they were expected to be used in case of a nuclear war, if ground command centers were destroyed.

The US E-4B plane based on the Boeing 747 airliner and the Russian Il-80 aircraft developed on the basis of Il-86 passenger jets are the most well-known models of such airborne operations centers.