Certain aircraft always have a ‘cool’ factor about themselves, the Tu-95 is one of them. The product of Stalinist Russia, the pinnacle of technology in its day with swept wings and a polished metal appearance. Dragged through the skys with four huge turboprops it can only be described as awesome. At the same time it has a touch of the old about, six 23mm guns in twin turrets, propellers and initially intended for free fall bombs. Thus if we take the Tu-95 as the definition of cool one of its intended developments must surely be regarded as cooler than cool:
The Tu-96 took the basic high altitude, long range bomber concept and improved it. Essentially what one sees is a Tu-95 fuselage with a larger wing area (increased from 283.7 to 345.5m) and more powerful engines. The intended NK-16 engine would have produced 18100hp.
However the engines were not ready for the first flight so the aircraft was only ever fitted with the NK-12M of 15000hp. Ultimately the project was canceled creating yet another ‘never was’ in the process. This leaves me with a question (as always), why was the project stopped? Were there other more promising alternatives or were there technical difficulties, or is it a mystery?:confused:
Furthermore if anybody has any pictures or additional information on the Tu-96 I would greatly appreciate it if you shared it here, thank you in advance sealordlawrence.:)
Online sources:
http://www.airwar.ru/enc_e/bomber/tu96.html
http://www.tupolev.ru/English/Show.asp?SectionID=49&Page=8 (Photographs)
http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/ListOfEngines/Junkers/Junkers.htm
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December 28, 2007 at 6:40 pm