We dare not make up our minds, but it is impossible to have a superficial appearance, after all, when the Tu-160 appeared, many countries would be nervous.
On 16 August 2005, a Tu-160 Pavel Taran, aircraft number 03, took off from an air base west of Moscow, followed by two Tu-160s. Three aircraft flew north in formation, changed course near Nizhny Novgorod and made a supersonic flight, then slowed down, fired four of the latest cruise missiles, hitting the intended target, followed by aerial refueling with an Il-78 tanker, and before landing in Murmansk, the three aircraft conducted a low-altitude penetration drill at a speed of 900 km / h. This was a course in Russia's long-range aviation exercise plan that year, but this mission was a little different from previous exercises: sitting in the captain position of captain of captain Plane 03 was Vladimir Putin, the supreme commander of the Russian armed forces at the time , and of course still is.
It still is
As an "amateur" player in flying aircraft, Emperor Pu could not really personally control the whole process, and the president's purpose was mainly to examine the Russian long-range aviation cruise missile launch, aerial refueling, maritime reconnaissance and supersonic flight, and by the way, boost morale - there is nothing more intuitive than personally inspecting these contents on a bomber, and nothing can boost the morale of an army more than the commander-in-chief personally coming down. Although this is not the first time that Emperor Pu has piloted a military aircraft, the Russian president personally piloted Russia's most powerful weapon, which can still make people feel a thick "bear wind" coming at you.
strength
The Tu-160 is scornfully known as the "Lancers" by the West because of the similar aerodynamic layout with the B-1B, but in fact, the Tu-160 is more than a little larger than the B-1B in terms of body size alone, and the maximum ammunition load is close to twice that of the B-1B. To say, the original Development of the Tu-160 was because of the pressure brought by the development of the B-1 is no problem, but the initial design of the Tu-160 is actually the foundation laid by Miasishev, and under the technical conditions at that time, the variable swept wing may be the most feasible and realistic way to solve the problem of high-speed flight and long-range cruising. So the Tu-160 still holds the titles of the fastest bomber in history to be put into mass production, the largest and heaviest variable swept-wing aircraft, and the largest and heaviest supersonic aircraft produced in production twice as fast.
You can feel "big" without reference
It was also in 1967, when two Soviet design bureaus, Sukhoi and the re-formed Myasishev Design Bureau, were asked to design a high-speed bomber. Suhoyin changed the fixed wing of the previously developed T-4 bomber (see the xx text) to a variable swept wing, became the T-4M to compete, and later further developed into the T-4MS; Myasishev came up with the M-20 program, also adopted the variable swept wing and canard wing, and later based on the fourth set of plans in the M-20 program, the M-18 program was formed, which eventually became the basis of the Tu-160.
Suho yin T-4M solution
Myassischev M-20 Scheme III.
Myasishev M-20 Program IV.
At this time, there was nothing to do with Tupolev, because at that time, the Tupolev Design Bureau was very full of tasks, and there was no time or energy to take on new tasks. But by 1969, the Air Force decided to involve the old Tupolev's design bureau, but until 1970 Tupolev only regularly participated in some related discussions and studies, and later after weighing the pros and cons and analyzing the current and prospective needs, Tupolev began to design in the design bureau, he himself was old, so he let his son Tupolev Jr. lead.
But in the eyes of many people, Tupolev mixed, things are a bit of a change of taste: generally is the design bureau will try to modify the program to meet the user's requirements, on the one hand, the original party A is the father, the second is in the Soviet Union at that time, the user is still the grandfather, but Tupolev grandpa has the ability, always let the user modify the needs to adapt to their own program, this time is the same, the original demand is the maximum flight speed to reach 3200 km or more, Su Huoyin can not withstand the pressure, Miasishev is not to mention, But As soon as Tupolev came up, he asked the Air Force to adjust the speed indicator to M2.2, which was much easier.
The earliest Tu-160 scheme
From 1972 to 1974, the Soviet Ministry of Defense organized three design bureau programs for PK. Both Sukhoiyn and Miasishev's plans were approved, but at that time Sukhoifin was also responsible for the development of the T-10 program (later Su-27) to compete with the F-15, and the Soviet Air Force was afraid that Sukhoiyin would use this to turn to heavy bombers and weaken the development of fighter and attack aircraft, so it was reluctant to let Sukhois take over; Miassischev's side had previously specialized in heavy aircraft, and had also made achievements in aircraft such as the Mia-4. However, because it was the New Design Bureau (the old design bureau that originally developed the Mia-4 and other aircraft was disbanded and rebuilt), the scale was still relatively small, and the Soviet Air Force was not very confident that Miasishev would undertake the development of such an aircraft.
Stretched wings
During the discussion of the plan, at the end of 1972 the old Tupolev had died, the leader of the design bureau was the little Tupolev, the original plan of the Tu-160 was also proposed by the little Tupolev, this plan was not approved by the military, because it was very similar to the Tu-244 supersonic airliner that was also under development, and the commander of the Soviet long-range aviation even said: You actually gave me a passenger plane! However, taking into account the development experience, comprehensive strength and other factors, it was finally decided that the Tupolev Design Bureau would take over the full set of information of Miasishev's M-18 program to continue to develop, and Sukhoyin's plan was also abandoned.
Even if Miasishev has fully studied the new machine before, Tupolev is still an old design bureau after all, and his sense of responsibility is very strong, or together with the Central Hydrodynamics Research Institute, he has re-tested a large number of aerodynamic layouts and power configuration schemes, and finally determined the overall layout we see now. The new Tu-160 adopts a fly-by-wire control system and a fly/hair integrated design, and has also done a lot of work in terms of comfort and maintenance, changing the old problem of poor ergonomics of Soviet aircraft in the past, and has been widely welcomed from pilots to aircraft maintenance personnel after service. On November 14, 1981, the first Tu-160 prototype underwent ground slide, and its first flight was successful on December 18 of the same year, five days before the 9th anniversary of the death of the elder Tupolev.
Add some oil
The original planned production of the Tu-160 was also more than 100, but the collapse of the Soviet Union changed everything, when Russia was unable to continue to produce the Tu-160, Yeltsin suspended the production of the Tu-160 in 1992, and unilaterally stopped the long-range cruise of the Russian long-range aviation corps, the aircraft that had been produced, in addition to the prototype and the test aircraft retained by Tupolev, the 19 delivered to the troops were detained because they were all deployed in Ukraine. In 2001, only 8 new ones were returned through the reduction of Ukraine's energy debt, etc., and the rest were destroyed (1 of them went to the museum); the 6 aircraft that were still on the production line and were close to completion were slowly delivered by the end of 1994, and the remaining unfinished airframes were shut down, until 2017, only 4 were delivered, and the Tupolev Design Bureau also set up a retained test aircraft, and 1 crashed due to a flight accident. In the year Putin personally piloted, there were only 14 Tu-160s in Russia, of which no more than half remained operational. Like the American B-2, each of the more than a dozen Tu-160s has its own "name", which shows how much Russia values this aircraft.
Each plane has its own name
Later, Russia was continuously suppressed by the West, the strategic space was continuously compressed, but it aroused Russia's fighting spirit and attention to strategic weapons such as the Tu-160, as Russia's economy and strength gradually recovered, the tu-160 training and combat tasks gradually increased, on August 17, 2007 Putin announced that Russia would resume the strategic patrol flight that had been stopped since 1991, and a month later, on September 14, British and Norwegian fighters intercepted two Tu-160s patrolling in the North Atlantic. On 25 December, two Tu-160s approached Danish airspace and two Danish Air Force F-16s took off to intercept them. The unprecedented operation was also shocking when two Tu-160 aircraft landed in Venezuela on September 10, 2008, shortly after the Russian military had finished its military operation in South Ossetia, and relations with the West remained tense. On November 17, 2015, the Tu-160 and Tu-95MS carried out air strikes against multiple IS targets in Syria's Idlib and Aleppo provinces, firing an estimated total of 34 to 83 cruise missiles, marking the first time the Tu-160 and Tu-95MS had been unveiled in combat.
Tu-160 landing in Venezuela
Belgian F-16 "Escort"
On April 29, 2015, Russia announced that it would resume production of the Tu-160, and before that modernization of the Active Tu-160 had begun, the first Tu-160 with new radar and avionics upgrades first flew in November 2014, and a month later it was officially delivered to the Russian Air Force in the Tu-160M model. The prototype of the new modern Tu-160M2, named after The first commander of the Russian Air Force, General Peter Denekin, made its first public flight on January 25, 2018.
Tu-160M2 prototype
On January 12, 2022, the new production tu-160M2 was successfully flown for the first time, and according to the plan, 2 will be delivered in 2022, and the final production will reach 50. Therefore, if there is no accident, this "white swan" in the eyes of Russia and the "pirate flag" in the eyes of the West will probably appear more in front of various cameras.
Recent test flight of the Tu-160M2
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