Tu 160 Blackjack Take Off
23 October 2019 - 17:34 Antony Sguazzin Russia landed the world’s biggest military aircraft in SA on Wednesday — the Tupolev Tu-160 “Blackjack” bomber, in a rare display of co-operation between the. Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, or UAC, has rolled out the first prototype of its upgraded Tu-160M2 Blackjack at its plant in Kazan. Indeed, the Tu-160 has taken part in the Air War in the skies over Syria: at least one Blackjack aircraft flew a strike mission on Nov. 17, 2015 that hit ISIL targets in Syria using Russian 3M-54 Kalibur cruise missiles launched at standoff range. Footage from Russia’s Defence Ministry showed two TU-160 strategic fighter planes taking off from an unknown location in Russia, and later landing at the Waterkloof airfield in South Africa. The flight reportedly took more than 13 hours spanning over 11,000 kilometres (6,835 miles) and pilots had to refuel in the sky mid-journey.
'Russian strategic bombers, Tu-160s, have landed in Venezuela. Yes, yes. So that way it hurts Yankees,' according to President Hugo Chavez. An outspoken critic of the United States, this is how Chavez sees Venezuela's latest cooperation with Russia. President of Venezuela Chavez himself came to the Libertador Air Base to greet Russian crews. The exercises, the first major maneuvers in the U.S. front yard since the Cold War, are a show of strength by Russia. The planes arrived on September 10 days after Russia and Venezuela announced they would conduct joint naval exercises in the Caribbean later this year.
The decision on the flight was made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in response to an invitation from the Venezuelan government. The bombers will carry out patrols over neutral waters in the Pacific and the Caribbean. Russia says Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might travel on one of the planes under certain conditions. According to Chavez, the arrival of the planes is not related to recent events in South Ossetia in any way. On August 7, 2007 Russia resumed strategic aviation flights, and some regard this as a return to the 'Soviet empire', but the world simply becomes multi-polar, Chavez said. The Tu-160 strategic bombers landed at Venezuela's Libertador airfield on September 10. Their return was scheduled for September 15. Maj.-Gen. Pavel Androsov, commander of the Air Force's strategic aviation, said the planes' return 'could take place later than September 15. It all depends on Venezuela's hospitality.'
Cuba has sufficient infrastructure to accommodate strategic bombers, Commander of the Long-Range Aviation of Russia's Air Forces Major General Pavel Androsov told a news conference 11 September 2008. He noted that Russian air forces were not yet planning to land on Cuba, although they had studied its capacity. When asked whether they were going to fly to other countries except Venezuela, Androsov retorted that he could see no reasons why they should not. 'The US air forces have already visited a lot of countries. We are not looking for enemies, rather, we are looking for friends, and friendship should be active,' he stated.
First flown in 1982, the Tupolev Tu-160 'Blackjack' is a counterpart to the American B-1B. Both share a similar configuration, but the Soviet designed bomber is about 30 percent larger and considerably faster. Its initial combat radius of 7300 km is estimated on a mission profile of subsonic high altitude cruise, transonic penetration at low altitude. The Blackjack has a conventional or nuclear free-fall bombing capability, but it has more often been associated with the AS-15 'Kent' cruise missile. The Blackjack is an extremely expensive aircraft, so with the current economic crisis affecting the former Soviet Union, together with the relaxation in international tension, it is unlikely that more than the 25 bombers currently in service will be completed.
Recent Developments
A re-arming plan for the Tu-160 under which the modernised Tu-160 was to carry 12 Kh-101s or Kh-SDs was halted in 1998. At that time the Russian Air Force had only six bombers of this type and talks on buying a further 19 from Ukraine fell through. In April 1998 it was decided that Ukraine's Tu-160s would be scrapped. There was therefore no sense in launching an upgrade programme and the complete withdrawal of the Tu-160 from service was being considered.
It was reported on 02 July 1999 that the Gorbunov Kazan Air Industrial Association received an order from the Ministry of Defense of Russia to complete the production of one Tu-160 strategic bomber. According to the Association's general director Nail Hairullin the contract for the aircraft production was worth 45 million rubles.
In July 1999 the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Alexander Kuzmuk confirmed that Kiev officially proposed that Moscow accept as payment for the gas debts 'about 10 strategic bombers Tu-160 and Tu-95'. He refused to tell the exact cost of missile carriers, however, in his judgment, it would be 'considerably more' than 25 million dollars for each machine. On 12 October 1999 the Russian air force announced an agreement that would allow Ukraine to pay some of its multimillion-dollar energy debts by handing over 11 strategic bombers. Ukraine had tried to unload the bombers since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but talks had foundered because of differences over the price tag and other conditions. The deal includes eight Tupolev 160 Blackjack bombers and three Tupolev 95 Bears.
The 11 strategic bombers and 600 air-launched missiles exchanged by Ukraine to Russia in payment for the gas debt were transferred in mid-February 2000. Two Tu-160 bombers flew from Priluki in the Ukrainian Chernigov region for the Russian air base in Engels. The missiles were sent to Russia by railroad. Three Tu-95MS bombers and six Tu-160 airplanes had already arrived at Engels since October 1999 in fulfillment of the intergovernmental agreements. Before being moved to Russia, 19 Tu-160 airplanes were stationed at the Priluki airfield and 21 Tu-95MS were located in Uzin.
A TU-160 strategic bomber crashed on 18 September 2003 in Engels. The crash occurred near Sovetskoye, Saratov oblast. All four crew members were killed in the accident. Preliminary data indicate that the cause of the crash was a fire in one of the engines, which started when the plane was at the altitude of about 2 km. The bomber was not carrying any weapons. The crashed aircraft was built at the Kazan Aviation Production Association in 1992. It was deployed with the 121st regiment of the 22 heavy bombers division, based in Engels.
After the loss of the aircraft, there were 14 strategic bombers of the Tu-160 type left in the Russian strategic aviation. According to reports, on 03 November 2019, two US fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter jets attempted to intercept a Russian Tu-160 strategic bomber during a scheduled flight in the neutral skies over the Sea of Japan. The Russian pilot masterfully put his machine into afterburner mode and escaped its pursuers, leaving just a glimpse of the giant bomber on the Americans’ flight radars. The Russian media reports also described the Tu-160 as an 'outdated' veteran of the Soviet air force, while the fifth generation F-35 Lightening II is the most modern and highly praised U.S. fighter aircraft. The Tu-160 has a maximum speed of 1,379 miles per hour (the F-35’s top speed is around 1,200 miles per hour).
Whatever its origins, the story seems to be fake. There was no record of any such incident over the Sea of Japan on Nov. 3 in several aviation incident tracking databases. The Russian media reports used strikingly similar language and appeared to be copy-pasted from a single source -- the Chinese news agency Sina. Yet, the Sina report cited Russia’s Sputnik state-owned media outlet, which in turn cited Sina as its source. Thus, it is impossible to determine the precise origins of the story. The defense committee of the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) told the weekly newspaper Voenno-Promyshlenny Kurier (Military-Industrial Courier) that there were no Tu-160 flights over the Sea of Japan in November or any other time during 2019.
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Tu 160 Blackjack Take Offline
Where that theory runs into a brick wall is when you take into account the design heritage of the Tupolev design, which clearly shows precursory hintsat the ultimate design years before the B-1 program was even launched.
There is no doubt that the project which spawned the Tu-160 was initiated as a reaction to America’s B-1 program, but the reason the designs look soalike is due more to similar concepts and similar technology progressions running in parallel rather than deliberate imitation.
To demonstrate that the Tu-160s configuration was a natural progression of Russian thinking, I will track the USSR’s strategic bomber developmentfrom the 1960s through to the Tu-160. I will not reference literally every aircraft/concept, just the main relevant ones.
The story might as well start in 1961 when USSR launched a bomber program in response to the US’s XB-70 Valkyrie program. Sukhoi, Tupolev andYakovlev where invited to make proposals. Before I go on I should point out that the Russian design bureaus were far more incestuous in their ideasand technology than their US counterparts. It was typical for concepts to switch bureau, so even though they were rivals on one level, technology andideas flowed between them. Thus Sukhoi thinking influenced Tupolev thinking and vice versa.
The main aircraft spawned from the 1961 project was the Sukhoi T-4 supersonic bomber which is often described as a scaled down Valkyrie:
Tupolev’s main design was the Tu-125:
It would be an easy mistake to assume that the T-4 and Tu-125 designs were again crude copies of the XB-70, which they undeniably resemble to varyingdegrees. However an interesting precursor which demonstrates that Russia was already thinking along those lines of a supersonic bomber is the Tupolev“SB” of 1959:
The Tupolev design lost to the T-4 and never made into prototype form. In another parallel to the American XB-70 program, the Russian program wascancelled in 1969-70 although the exact reason is unclear; the likely reason being that Tupolev, having lost to Sukhoi, managed to sway politicianswith the idea of further improvement to the lower risk Tu-22M Backfire project as a cheaper alternative.
Work on the Tu-22M had started in 1965 (then known as “145”) and it first flew on August 30th 1969. An early model of the “145” shows the”Blinder” heritage, but alsi the variable geometry wing:
This reminds us that Tupolev was flying swing-wing strategic bombers before the B-1 development contract was even awarded (1970)
The cancelled Sukhoi T-4 design had several follow-up designs. The first noteworthy one is the T-4M concept which featured variable geometrywings and shows the half-way house between the T-4/Valkyrie and the Tu-160/B-1:
In 1969 the USSR launched another bomber competition in response to the US’s AMSA project (which resulted in the B-1). This time Tupolev, Myasishevand Sukhoi took part. The winner was officially Sukhoi’s T-4MS (aka “200”), as it’s name suggests a progression of the T-4 designthough this time it looked very different:
Note the swing wings and lifting body between underslung engine nacelles.
Myasishev proposed various configurations incorporating swing wings ultimately developing the M-18 concept in 1972:
Note how Myasishev’s design is basically the same configuration as the Tu-160 and B-1. Note That the Myasishev design is two years before theB-1 even flew.. Myasishev’s design came second to Sukhoi’s T-4MS in the design battle, Tupolev’s last. The T-4MS was ordered to be builtbut that was not feasible because it would have meant canceling/interrupting the comparatively more important Su-27 program. Thus the T-4MS wastransferred to Toplev.
Tupolev didn’t develop the T-4MS however, still preferring their own rival: the Tu-160 Blackjack even though it was projected to beless capable (thus loosing the government competition).
The starting point of the original Tu-160 proposal was actually the Tu-144 supersonic airliner (comparable to the Concorde) though early designs ofthe Tu-160 show a more blended wing/body relative to the Tu-144 (/Tu-244), making it appear more like a militarized Concorde:
It was in 1972 after the transfer of Sukhoi T-4MS technology to Tuploev, and of Myasishev M-18 data, Tuplev started to develop the M-18 design withvariable geometry (“swing”) wings. The manufacturer of the first three prototypes commenced in 1977 and first flight was on November 14th 1981:
I am not suggesting that Russian designers are not influenced by American designers, but clearly the popular perception that the Tu-160 is just a“copy” of the B-1 is flawed, there is a clear natural evolution of concepts.
[edit on 17-3-2006 by planeman]