This message is about is about the Russian bomber which was developed about the same era as the B-52. The startling difference between the two is that the Tu-95 or Tu-142 is a prop plane and still is,I believe in production. Quite a few of the older versions were scrapped about the same time we broke up our early B-52s.
What I am getting at with all this preamble is the following question. Would it be possable/practical. to obtain one of these monsters for display in the states?
I am totally fascinated by LARGE prop planes. Does any one else share this aberetion with me?
Lee McKinney

Lee,
The "Bear" actually had its origins in the unlicenced copies of the B29 that the Russians cloned from interned airplanes that had been damaged on raids over Japan.

I think they (the B29ski's)were TU4's or TU9's. Anyone out there know?

Anyway, the Bear was a most impressive airplane.

Great idea and I share your fascination.

I've never seen the Tu95 or its civilian counterpart, the Tu114, but I hope to one day at the Russian aviation museum at Monino near Moscow.

The Bear/Tu114 was near unique in having contra-rotating propellors (though the Shackleton, the An22 and the Fairey Gannet also had this feature).

With the amount of stuff which has come out of the ex-USSR over the last ten years or so, I think it might be possible to get a Bear to the USA, but whoever does it would have to have pretty deep pockets and it would of course be out of the question to keep it flying once it arrives, but great idea-can anyone put it into practice?

Yes, Lee I do. If I had trillions of dollars and all of those old classics were still around I would fill my back forty with them.

My facination has always been with the biggest prop transport planes made including the TU's
your talking about. Unfortunately TU's are no longer in production and only a few are surviving.
I don't think in service though I may be wrong. I know that one big Russian air museum has at least one example.

Doug

Your right David. The tu-4 was a Russianized copy of the B-29. It had several designations but Nato called it the Bull or Barge It wasn't an exact copy but I heard on TV the designer.A.N.Tupolev joking about the closeness of the design to the B-29 that the TU-4 evan had the same tendancy as the B-29 toward engine fires.
While the same design team(Tupolev and Myasishchev) produced the TU-20 or 95 it had some real advanced features such as 37 degrees of leading edge sweep and an increase to 15,000 hp. That ought to be enough to fly a barn door. They haven't been in continous production but have been produced in upgraded batches until very recently and are now refered to as TU-142. Published figures show them cruising at well over 500 mph. I read somewhere that the props measured about 15 ft. dia. and turned about 750 rpm. That puts it in the B-52 class,I think. They are still very much operational in the Russian airforce.
I suspect there are still a few obsolete dash numbers scattered around the country. BTW. The russians donated a TU-144 to a museum in Europe so maybe you wou wouldn't have to be a trillioner. As on of my okie friends used to say, just a barrel full of money and a pocket full of change.
Lee McKinney

Lee,

Have you seen the AN 22? It is a HUGE Soviet turboprop cargo acft with contraprops. Might be one or two still flying.

Mark

Lee,

Thanks for confirming that it was the TU4.

The TU4 and the B29 are just so close that one can see just where the Russians got the design from. And the engines suffering identical problems is just too co-incidental.

Incidentally, the 1st of the USAAC B29's that the Russians interned had had some previous battle damage which had been repaired in the field.

Some years after WW2, and also long after the TU4 had disappeared from Russian service, a retired B29 crewman from that particular first interned airplane, got to inspect a TU4 at a museum.

He observed that the Russians had even incorporated the battle damage repair (to his airplane,) into their production version of the TU4 (B29ski)

What a hoot! Maybe Ford Motor Company should have sent the Russian auto industry a couple of Edsel's.

David
They did. Have you ever seen a reliable Russian car?
Herb

I heard or read some remarks about the incorperated battle damage from Tupolov in an interview. Seems Stalin didn't take kindly to disobedience of any kind. He said to build a copy. Seems he wasn't all that knowledgeable about aircraft. The bullet holes were to satisfy him. The design changes that were incorperated were in skin thickness. This was to lighten the airframe so as to obtain performance comparable to the B-29 since the russian Wrights developed considerably less power. He seemed to think it was a joke. Life must have been exciting under Stalin. I would like to have known some of those old russian designers. They had a good sense of irony. At times they had to work
from the inside of a jail cell.
Lee McKinney

Well Herb. I have never seen a russian car but I understand they used to produce copies of the 39 Packard. I forget what it was called but you got to admit it was reliable. We saw lots of russian tractors when we worked in Bolivia. They were simple designs, maybe overbuilt but cheap(relatively) and reliable. Sorry, I tend to ramble. I know this post is off subject.
Lee

Your right Mark. T don't have a thing on the An-22 but I was able to pull up a photo on the web. It looks huge and I understand there are still several in service. Looks like a real heavy hauler.
Also, I just read at Roys Russian Aircraft that the latest update on the Tu-95 is being done and should be finished in 2004.

Lee,

Go to the internet punching up Russian Cars.
There are a number of sites...all in the Russian language..but look at the New Russian automobiles. Some of them look very nice. And since being Russian....they must hold together like T-34 tanks!

Oh, by the way, I got your second set of slides today.........and they are of airplanes...not Harley's.

There is an An22 preserved in western Europe, at the Technik Museum in Speyer, Germany, where it is the star exhibit-I went there in April.

Re Russian cars: we have had them for years here in the UK. In the 1970s we had the Moskvich-a complete clunker, even by the low standards of 1970s cars.

We have also had Russian Lada cars over here for years. An indication of the regard in which they are held over here is illustrated by the fact that they and Czech Skoda cars (though these are now good cars)are that most stand up comedians include a Lada/Skoda joke in their routines. eg What do you call a Lada at the top of a hill? A miracle-and similar.

There was an attempt to market Lada Cars in Australian a few years ago. A 50's era jeep type vehicle, which was basic, rugged, but reasonably reliable and a small sedan based on Fiat technology.

The latter was a joke, made the Edsel look good and they are a rarity now. Most are rusting away in junk yards now, though most were rusting before they even hit the new car sales rooms.

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It would not surprise me that one of the reasons why the Russian Wrights could not achieve the power of their American counterparts would also be found in the quality of AvGas made in Russia.

During the war, the American Philips Petroleum Company (UOP)invented a process that gave higher octane gasoline than had been achieved to that time and it gave US and British aero engines a real boost in power.

I wonder whether the Russian Wrights had the same nose case problems that their American counterparts (BA series)had?

I think these aircraft were the only prop-powered ones to have swept wings-and their wings were perhaps even more swept back than most jetliners.

They were very fast for turboprops too: I don't have a reference book to hand, but a max speed of 545 mph comes to mind-jetliner performance.