The AL-21F-3 was an advanced turbojet design. Its only real failings compared to the AL-31F are higher fuel consumption (though rather better than the R-29-300 series) and greater weight.

RD-33 owes nothing directly to the RB199.

RD-33 is a two spool turbofan with a low bypass ratio. If it is inspired by anything it would be the YJ-101 that became the F404.

RB199 is a three spool turbofan with a medium bypass ratio. Very different.

There WAS an RB199 inspired engine designed. It was the Tumansky R67-300, a three spool turbofan rated at 7,500kg thrust. It lost out to the RD-33.

For the benefit of those of us who don’t read Chinese- what does it say?

01- Mikhail Gromov (Famous test pilot)

02- Vasiliy Reshetnikov (Former Long- range Aviation commander)

03- Pavel Taran (WW2 Bomber pilot)

04- Ivan Yarygin (Famous wrestler, won gold at 1972 Olympics)

05- Originally Il’ya Muromets, now Aleksandr Golovanov (Long- range Aviation commander, 1942-44 and 1946-48)

06- Il’ya Muromets

07- Aleksadr Molodchiy (famous WW2 bomber pilot)

11- Vasiliy Sen’ko (only Long- range Aviation navigator to become Hero of the Soviet Union twice)

12- Aleksandr Novikov (1940s Air Chief Marshal)

16- Aleksey Plokhov (WW2 Bomber pilot)

These are all the named examples I know of- not all Tu-160s have been named.

There are more than 6 operational – it was 15 a while back, though 1 has crashed since then- but I think 3 more were being completed?

There has never been any evidence that the USSR had physical access to Tomcats and Phoenixes. In fact, the head of Vympel specifically denied seeing a Phoenix when he happily admitted to reverse engineering both Sidewinder and Sparrow.

They *did* have a lot of spies, however. They got detailed information on the F-15’s F100 engine that sent them up the garden path, changing the AL-31s configuration to resemble it, only to find it didn’t work at all well. Lyulka had to borrow the compressor design (scaled up) from the RD-33 to get back on track.

They also got detailed info on the APG-65, too late to influence the N019 and N001 but it probably proved useful when designing “Zhuk”…

TUPOLEV BOMBERS for £9.99 sounds quite tempting.

Is the Tu-16 section the decent article from IAPR 9 or an older WAPJ effort?

Hey did you notice they only want hard currency?

Wonder why… 😉

Mikoyan “33” project