Tu-160 "White Swan"

15 or so Tu-160s just sounds expensive to maintain. Thats why I reckon new production would make sense. They could have many uses including satellite launches as well. And I also wonder if Russia is thinking of a cargo carrying Tu-160 too (altho ofcourse the fuselage is rather narrow for various arms).

I find the whole idea not very feasible. I am not sure KAPO still has the capability to produce them anymore, as aircraft production in the last +20 years has been very low at this plant. Components produced in Ukraine should be replaced. It is a shame the 10 Ukrainian ones that were scrapped.

I wonder if it would be better to activate some Tu-95. It is an obsolete platform, but nowadays it's more and more about the weapons.

In any case, a strategic bomber is a good candidate to get the chop during a financial crisis.

Sorry a bit but I wonder the people prefer calling Tu-160 as "White Swan" or "Blackjack" ?

higurashihougi wrote:Sorry a bit  but I wonder the people prefer calling Tu-160 as "White Swan" or "Blackjack" ?

Aslong as he doesn't lay eggs, for me he remains the Tupolev Tu-160. (And I sincerely hope to never see its eggs).
And I still have to understand if they will restart the production of new Tu-160s, or it is impossible or economically detrimental.

But I wonder if there are alternative options today? Perhaps more use of titanium and carbon fibre/exotic alloys.

If you want to give up the supersonic performance and large fixed wing and thicker body profile would probably allow a huge increase in payload and range... or a more sophisticated large wing... ie compare the MiG-23s wing with the PAK FA but scaled up... it might work and would not need the huge central box structure for the swing wings...

Its also interesting to note that once the Tu-160 was up and running, plans were being made for the Tu-260 and Tu-360.

I was more interested in the Tu-160P plans...

15 or so Tu-160s just sounds expensive to maintain. Thats why I reckon new production would make sense. They could have many uses including satellite launches as well. And I also wonder if Russia is thinking of a cargo carrying Tu-160 too (altho ofcourse the fuselage is rather narrow for various arms).

I think a few more minor upgrades and then PAK DA will be ready to replace it...

Come on Armenian that's so amateur it's embarrasing to look at

Presented with the Mona Lisa and you say... it needs more in the background and what is with the smile... don't expect the result to be the artists best work...

In any case, a strategic bomber is a good candidate to get the chop during a financial crisis.

The Sky is not falling... compared with submarines I am sure the aircraft are fairly cheap and of course are much more flexible than SLBMs and ICBMs in that they can be used with conventional weapons in conventional wars and they can be called up in a way that they can be called back too, yet the visibility of their deployment can cause your potential enemy to realise you mean business and wont back down.

And I still have to understand if they will restart the production of new Tu-160s, or it is impossible or economically detrimental.

Only compete redesign would allow production again... makes more sense to just spend money on PAK DA and upgrades of existing types.

Thanks and is it true this "story" about the color of the engine exhaust during the take off? White in water injection, blue without water?

Yes...





Note water injection to increase power on B-52s makes the sky dark...

NO2 from the combustion of aviation fuel has a natural reddish-brown hue. People confuse this with soot and think it
means poor combustion. A lot of NOx is emitted during combustion since a lot of N2 and O2 (99% of the air) goes through
the engines and see very high temperatures.

The colour of the flames is a different thing and here we see the H2O injection.

Does anyone have any information that explains the use of H2O?

I'm an everyman, but, for those who do not already know these things better than me, some times ago I heard a joke, but which explained (for me very well) the operation of a turbine engine. A jet should work like this: "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" ... Suck and Squeeze should be the compressor, Bang the combustion chambers, Blow the turbine. I don't know if this is correct, but it is all I know about it.
Two things govern everything: first, the flow rate of the fluid accelerated through the engine (more fluid in unit of time, more thrust) and, second, the temperature of the engine (heat not good for the thrust).
The water injection in front of combustion chambers should do two things: first, drops down the engine temperature, so increases thrust and, second, the water increases also the volume of the fluid (air + water) through the engine and also this should increase the thrust.

Giulio wrote:I'm an everyman, but, for those who do not already know these things better than me, some times ago I heard a joke, but which explained (for me very well) the operation of a turbine engine. A jet should work like this: "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" ... Suck and Squeeze should be the compressor, Bang the combustion chambers, Blow the turbine. I don't know if this is correct, but it is all I know about it.
Two things govern everything: first, the flow rate of the fluid accelerated through the engine (more fluid in unit of time, more thrust) and, second, the temperature of the engine (heat not good for the thrust).
The water injection in front of combustion chambers should do two things: first, drops down the engine temperature, so increases thrust and, second, the water increases also the volume of the fluid (air + water) through the engine and also this should increase the thrust.

Thanks, this is basically what the other source on the web say. It seems to be used during low altitude flight such as take offs.

Depending on how much water you use, it produces lots of soot due to poor combustion:

Water injection has been used in both reciprocating and turbine aircraft engines. When used in a turbine engine, the effects are similar, except that normally preventing detonation is not the primary goal. Water is normally injected either at the compressor inlet or in the diffuser just before the combustion chambers. Adding water increases the mass being accelerated out of the engine, increasing thrust, but it also serves to cool the turbines. Since temperature is normally the limiting factor in turbine engine performance at low altitudes, the cooling effect allows the engine to be run at higher RPM with more fuel injected and more thrust created without overheating.[3] The drawback of the system is that injecting water quenches the flame in the combustion chambers somewhat, as there is no way to cool the engine parts without cooling the flame accidentally. This leads to unburned fuel out the exhaust and a characteristic trail of black smoke.

The above is from wiki regarding water injection.

As a side note very fast planes like the MiG-25 used intake sprays that put alcohol into the air intake to cool down the air going into the engine so more thrust could be generated out the back. So much alcohol was used by the aircraft its nickname was restaurant...

A jet should work like this: "suck, squeeze, bang, blow" ... Suck and Squeeze should be the compressor, Bang the combustion chambers, Blow the turbine. I don't know if this is correct, but it is all I know about it.
Two things govern everything: first, the flow rate of the fluid accelerated through the engine (more fluid in unit of time, more thrust) and, second, the temperature of the engine (heat not good for the thrust).

Not bad but not right in some areas... first of all Heat IS thrust... the hotter the better, but too hot damages components in the engine so heat is limited to reduce chances of damage... if the engine parts could take it you would make it as hot as you could for a turbojet. A turbo fan moves volume air for thrust so it does not need to be so hot.


Anyway think of a turbojet engine as being a tube that starts out wide... gets a bit narrow in the middle and opens out again at the rear. Put a shaft down the centre and mount blades on the shaft.\

At the front the blades suck air into the engine.

Where the tube narrows the air is naturally compressed... as well as being pushed through by the air coming after it through the intake.

then the air is blasted out the rear as thrust.

the part where the tube narrows is called the hot section... that is where fuel is added and burned to generate even more heat and pressure and in the rear more fuel can be sprayed into the exhaust and ignited... the latter is called the after burner or reheat.

the shaft from the hot section is connected to the front blades so if you increased the fuel added in the hot section the natural result is the blades in the hot section and the front blades spin faster.

that is basically a turbojet engine.

A turbo fan engine has another tube around the outside so the front blades suck air into both tubes, the air going through the core is heated and fuel is added but at the rear the cold air going around the outside hasn't been heated yet and has had no fuel burned in it so it is dense heavy air that is oxygen rich so when it reaches the after burner or reheat section it can generate a lot more thrust because it has a lot more mass and is able to burn more fuel because it is still oxygen rich.

A high bypass turbofan like on a jet airliner has a huge front fan and a small narrow turbojet to the rear... the turbojet is just there to turn the big turbofan and most of the thrust the engine generates comes from the big cold fan. As most of the air comes from the cold fan air rather than from the hot turbojet it is called a high bypass turbofan. It can generate a lot of thrust by moving lots of heavy cold air, but is no good if you want to go supersonic.

Keep going in that direction and a turboprop like the engines used on the Bear use a turbojet to turn a large propeller in the front of the engine and it is the propeller that generates the thrust... very efficient for low level flying and of course only capable of subsonic flight. When the propeller blades break the speed of sound they create sound waves instead of pressure waves and lose efficiency.

in the opposite direction if you take the shaft and blades out of a turbojet engine you have a ramjet engine where air coming in is naturally compressed by the narrowing tube... fuel is added and burned and comes out the rear as thrust.

very simple and very light... many ramjet powered weapons like the KUB (SA-6 SAM), the Kh-31, and various anti ship missiles like Onyx and Brahmos use the column of empty space down the core of the weapon for a solid rocket booster to get the weapon in motion. Once in flight the solid rocket motor component is dropped, the intake opened to the air flow and the ramjet started... the speed of the ramjet is limited only by its ability to slow the air coming in to subsonic speed so fuel can be burned and then accelerating that air to high speed out the exhaust as thrust.

The Scramjet, or supersonic combustion ramjet is basically the same hollow tube but designed so that the fuel can be burned at supersonic speed... this is the holy grail because as long as you can control the temperatures the scramjet as no upper flight speed limit.

High bypass turbofans and turboprops are subsonic only. Turbojets and turbofans peak at about mach 2.8... any faster and the rotational speeds of the blades rip themselves apart... the SR-71 can fly at mach 3.5 for long periods because it uses bypass air as a ramjet with the main turbojet engines doing very little in the way of moving the aircraft through the air.

A ramjet is good to mach 7-mach 9 or so, but scramjets can be used to orbital speeds... though they can't be used as scramjets in space if you take some liquid oxygen you could supply fuel and oxygen and use it as a rocket for propulsion.

The water injection in front of combustion chambers should do two things: first, drops down the engine temperature, so increases thrust and, second, the water increases also the volume of the fluid (air + water) through the engine and also this should increase the thrust.

Dropping engine temperature just protects it from damage when used at very high thrust settings at low altitude where the air is very thick and could cause damage to the intake by heating it too much.

KRET is eager to take part in the possible resumption of production and modernisation of the Tu-160

Regarding the possible resumption of the production of Tu-160, KRET is ready to equip them with a system of electronic warfare (EW), which has advanced features to overcome air defense systems.

...

KRET has expressed it's willingness to begin production of avionics for the Tu-160

The aircraft will be equipped with a piloting complex, airborne weapons control systems, sensors, fuel systems, display devices.

In addition, the missile will be equipped with a strapdown inertial navigation system type BINS-SP (KRET development), as well as high-performance electronic warfare system with improved tactical and technical capabilities to overcome air defense systems.

http://kret.com/ru/news/3777/

I don't know how to respond to this kind of arrogance

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-supersonic-tu-160-bomber-back-should-america-worry-12787

sepheronx wrote:

higurashihougi wrote:I don't know how to respond to this kind of arrogance

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-supersonic-tu-160-bomber-back-should-america-worry-12787

Didnt read. National interest..... lol. Who cares. The plane is awesome and as a cruise missile bomber can launch their arsenal outside US capabilities to engage. So they will need to worry.

Short-read garbage - I wouldn't give it any credibility. NI has become a bit a joke over the past year or so.

Honesroc wrote:

sepheronx wrote:

higurashihougi wrote:I don't know how to respond to this kind of arrogance

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-supersonic-tu-160-bomber-back-should-america-worry-12787

Didnt read. National interest..... lol. Who cares. The plane is awesome and as a cruise missile bomber can launch their arsenal outside US capabilities to engage. So they will need to worry.

Short-read garbage - I wouldn't give it any credibility. NI has become a bit a joke over the past year or so.

Save yourself a waste of 5mins.
Its utter shite.

I bet he was singing "The Star Spangled Banner" while he was typing it..

An excellent example of why Europe is sick to death of American interference and outright terrorism.

Honesroc wrote:

sepheronx wrote:

higurashihougi wrote:I don't know how to respond to this kind of arrogance

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-supersonic-tu-160-bomber-back-should-america-worry-12787

Didnt read. National interest..... lol. Who cares. The plane is awesome and as a cruise missile bomber can launch their arsenal outside US capabilities to engage. So they will need to worry.

Short-read garbage - I wouldn't give it any credibility. NI has become a bit a joke over the past year or so.

It's just the tip of the iceberg, National Interest claimed in a article a few months back that Russia would support terrorist attacks against the Wallstreet Stock Market, as a plea of desperation towards attacking America LMAO!!!

They also made some ridiculous claims about Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, you can ask GarryB for more details.

Could corruption explain this decision?

Without even reading the article... no.

The 15-16 Tu-160s available is a very small force which likely makes it economically not great to begin with... add to that its engines are related to the engines on the Tu-22M3 but are unique... so a total of 60 odd engines is the lot... you pretty much have two choices... scrap them or make more... and what they are saying is they want to explore the possibility of making more.

they might find a simple way to redesign the aircraft with a scaled up fixed wing that might not allow mach 2 flight but might allow supercruising with a cheaper and simpler fixed wing and new engines that it can share with upgraded Tu-22m3 and PAK DA... who knows what solutions they might come up with... the might enable the Tu-160 to remain in service till 2050... of course by 2025 they might have enough PAK DAs for the strategic and theatre bombing/cruise missile carrying roles and the in service Tu-160s... say 30 of them might be adapted to heavy interceptor... who knows until they investigate their options.

An article dealing with the possibility of renewed production of the Tu-160....basically the conclussion is that it can be done IF there is political will (mainly funds I guess).

Also, it seems there 2 more fuselages available at Kazan (see below)

Now in service with the Russian air force are 16 bombers Tu-160. They are being upgraded, with full implementation in 2020. It's a lot, but to maintain a constant alert and Shoigu said earlier that strategic bombers will patrol various areas of the world – this number is not enough. To perform the functions of Tu-160's is no no other aircraft, standing now in service.

Promising aviation complex distant aviation (PAK DA) promise to make only in the following decade. Therefore, according to experts, the resumption of production The Tu-160 to close the needs of the air force for the next few years, makes sense.

But there are a number of issues:

- the proportion of components manufactured in Ukraine;

- even much of what was produced on the territory of Russia, more than two decades was not made, respectively, elements of the technological chain are missing,

- some hardware may be missing,

- many professionals who have worked on the plane, already retired;

- in the 80-ies there were no modern computers, and all the documentation, most likely, is in "analog" form, and its translation into new digital form will require time and money;

- the development of aviation has been further developed and, if you go back to the production of aircraft, it is necessary to develop new hardware - has it been developed? Given the fact that existing bombers are being upgraded, there is a certain reserve, but whether all the necessary components developed?

Editor of Moscow defense Brief - Vasily Kashin

...the production of updated version of the Tu-160, may be considered as one of variants of implementation of the program PAK DA.

The Kazan plant has 2 unfinished Tu-160 fuselages which were never ordered due to a dissagreement over price with the MOD.  it's time to finally sort out and resolve the issue of completion of these two aircraft. Maybe Shoigu was referring to these 2 aircraft.


To restart large scale production of the original aircraft is impossible (due to above mentioned reasons). However, production of a essentially new aircraft based on the original is possible if there is enough investment. It would be costly, but still cheaper than a completely new design

The optimist: Honored pilot of the USSR, former military pilot Oleg Smirnov

the idea of reproduction of the Tu-160 is good, but its implementation engineers have to solve two principal problems.

First avionics: navigation equipment, instruments, sights, missile launchers," he said.

The second problem is the engines. They need to constantly refine them to have reduced specific consumption of fuel. How this is done, we know, and this task can be achieved.


In his opinion, to establish the production of aircraft during the year is a real possibility. "We need to organize the production of its components. If there is political will, we can make it to the end of the year. Eight months is a considerable period of time. And next year you can start to produce" said the expert.

Source: http://vpk.name/news/131407_V_OAK_podschityivayut_stoimost_vozobnovleniya_proizvodstva_Tu160.html

Apparently those 2 fuselages were already used up

Well in that case somebody better tell the folks at Moscow Defense Brief about it....you'd think they would know since they charge a fair bit for their publication