The Russian Tupolev Tu-4 supposedly was a “carbon copy” of the American B-29…
1. B-29 props could be “fully feathered.”
Could the props of the Tu-4 engine be feathered?
2. Older B-29s had hydraulically-operated bomb bay doors and later model B-29s (and B-29As) had pneumatically-operated doors.
What kind of bomb bay doors did the Tu-4 have?
By: delta64 - 8th June 2009 at 09:07
As ‘NII VVS’ writes the russians changed the engine and engine utileries. I do not have the Tu-4 book by my side but the Tupolev people changed and built the ‘copy’ in metric and after change of engines etc. the russian Tu4’s weight difference towards the Boeing B29 was less then 300kg. That’s impressing.
By: Arabella-Cox - 7th June 2009 at 18:53
Well, “carbon” copy… no. It is true that Stalin ordered Tupolev’s Bureau to design and put into manufacture a copy of the B-29 in lieu of Tupolev’s own “Type 64” (which would have been notably superior, ironically), but certainly they did not do so with blind plagiarism.
The Soviets were horrified, for example, by the R-3550 engines. During testing at the NII VVS (and also the same heard from intelligence reporting) it was found that these engines burst into flames at will, failed under virtually any stressful condition, and were hopelessly unreliable under ‘forward’ conditions. Reliable and powerful ASh-73TKs were used for the Tu-4 programme, and never gave any trouble. The armament, as well, was replaced by Soviet weapons of vastly better capability.
“Could the props of the Tu-4 engine be feathered?”
Yes. The ASh-73s usually drove a V3B-A5 propeller which was fully featherable via its R-18A governor.
“What kind of bomb bay doors did the Tu-4 have?”
The material I have only mentions that these are of ‘electro-mechanical’ operation. Nothing more, alas.
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June 7, 2009 at 4:43 pm