Tu-160 Best Bomber in the World.

[ComradeDTAII]

Not once in human history have we ever been able to build a weapon of such grace, and form. A true artists rendering of beauty, in fact, I have painted a picture on canvas of this particular aircraft. A true testament of Soviet ingenuity, and also a weapon to strike fear into our enemies hearts.

In 1986, I had one such pleasure of seeing this majestic jet fly by, I was astonished with it's sound and the look of it's powerful Trud turbofan engines making their announcement over the commune from my childhood flat in Tula, Moscow region.

Esteemed friends at russia.com, I present to you, the Tupalov Tu-160.



Type: Supersonic strategic bomber

Powerplants: four Trud NK-231 turbofan engines developing 2220 km/h (1200 kt) weighing 55,000 pounds fueled.

Overall weight (no armaments): 110,000 kilograms.

Dimensions: wingspan-(extended) 56 meters, (supersonic swept) 36 meters, length-54 meters, height 13 meters, wing area equals 360 square meters.

Crew: 4, side-by-side pilots plus navigator and bombadier behing them.

Payload: 40,000 kilos of freefall conventional bombs or ASM's in two spacious bombays, rotary launchers can be attached to accomodate 6 Kh-55Ms ALCM's or 12 Kh-15P's SRAM's.

Tu-160 was built to in response to American designated B1 bomber, although on the outside of aircrafts simularities are sparked, (other than the Tu-160 being larger) the inside of the Tu-160 is completely different in terms of electronics and computers, somewhat like the differences between the Buran shuttle and the Space shuttle.

The Tu-160 sports four of the largest jet engines EVER to be fitted to a jet bomber, and gives the Tu-160 it's high performance in speed and it's variable wing geometry give it almost unparalleled maneuverability.

It can be fitted with Soviet plasma stealth generators which produce an elektro-magnetic field around the entire aircraft, making it invisible to western radars.

The one I had the pleasure of seeing was the 3rd of 30 that were built, Yeltsin, the fat fool he was *cringes* cancelled project in 1992, as country was preparing for de-industrialization.

Such beauties were built at AVIATSIONNY NAUCHNO-TEKHNISHESKY KOMPLEKS IMENI A N TUPOLEVA OAO and in Tartarstan.



~ComradeDTAII

[Voyager13b]

Comrade,

I like the TU-160. It was the first quality supersonic bomber that the CCCP was able to produce after decades of R&D. It is impressive, and it does deliver supersonic speed, and a large payload, even though it's target bomber (the B1) was cancelled, and the replacement western bombers brought online since then have been subsonic.

Still, the 160 is pretty old, and it is a stretch to call it "the best bomber in the world". Of course, you tend to call anything developed by the CCCP "the best" as a matter of course, so your credibility is already shot to hell.

I prefer to view the TU-160 as a fine bomber by any standard, but it is still an old airframe, and even if the fantasy of plasma stealth has been fitted to the very small fleet, it is doubtful that it would work on such a large aircraft for it's entire flight, and the 160 still suffers from a comparatively old electronics suite and control system. That isn't to say that upgrades have not been applied over the years. I'm sure that they have. The problem is that there has not been enough money available to do it all, and that the plasma stealth project is more "Buck Rogers" than reality with a huge aircraft like the 160.

As I said, I like the TU-160, and think it is both a very capable bomber, and no doubt the best looking design flying today (I have a TU-160 pic as desktop wallpaper on this PC). It isn't the best bomber in the world though. It is one of the best. Lately, I'm starting to think that you can blow perfect smoke rings through your shorts.....

By the way, as I understand it, there were only 19 of them built by 1991 (I have heard that anywhere between 0 and 10 have been built since then), and by Sept 2003, a couple of them had fallen out of the sky because their engines caught on fire and exploded in the air while on rare training flights. Did another 160 crash during a training flight last year? Maybe I'm thinking of the 2003 event, but it seens that the last crash was more recent.

Voyager

[ComradeDTAII]

Tu-22M wasn't bad, but true it was a very nice supersonic bomber, better than F-117 or B2 at any rate.

Still, the 160 is pretty old, and it is a stretch to call it "the best bomber in the world". Of course, you tend to call anything developed by the CCCP "the best" as a matter of course

Look at it this way, the Tu-160 is by far the fastest bomber in existence, it's plasma stealth capabilities will blind radars trying to detect it, and it's conventional/nuclear payload is also quite unparalleled compared with other strategic bombers.

It is actually best bomber in the world because there is not other bomber in the world that can compare with it.

By the way, as I understand it, there were only 19 of them built by 1991 (I have heard that anywhere between 0 and 10 have been built since then), and by Sept 2003, a couple of them had fallen out of the sky because their engines caught on fire and exploded in the air while on rare training flights. Did another 160 crash during a training flight last year? Maybe I'm thinking of the 2003 event, but it seens that the last crash was more recent.

There is a fleet of 30 such bombers in existence.

Yes explosion due to engine failures, but go figure, systems haven't been upgraded in 20 year.