http://records.fai.org/general_aviation/aircraft.asp?id=369

Those are all the records the Bone has set. Nearly all of them at the top that were broken were broken by the Tu-160, with the only exception being that over the 5,000km circuit the Bone was 37km/hr faster. In the grand scheme of things that means absolutely nothing, especially when you see just how much faster the Tu-160 was on the shorter courses. Those 37 km/hr are irrelevant except to maybe demonstrate that the Bone has a very slightly higher best range subsonic cruise speed, which is again irrelevant in any serious comparison between the two aircraft.

point this towards sfertard

My dear Trollqueen

Anybody with even a passing relationship with women would know. Maybe that’s your problem.

[color=red]All of that crap is unacceptable on this forum and makes all of you look far less intelligent and mature than I assume you are. No more free passes for anyone.[/color]

ANYway, Mod mode off…

But speaking of Energia, there’s another example. Had to make sure it was more powerful than the Shuttle so the world would know of Soviet superiority or did it need more power because of poor design?

Energiya was large, massive, and powerful because it was meant to do a lot more than just lift Buran. It was the launcher for Polyus, for one.

Does the Blackjack even have any external hardpoints?

No, but the Bone can’t employ them anymore either. BLACKJACK never needed them due to the larger internal bays.

The B-1B carried 30,000kg for 5000km faster than the Blackjack did (1054km/hr vs 920km/hr for the Blackjack). Since the Blackjack record was flown later the crew obviously knew what the existing record was. They failed to break it.

Tu-160 record flights were done in 1989 and 1990. They did 30,000kg in 920km/hr on one flight and 30,000kg in 1017km/hr on another. FAI lists the latter as the current record for Class C-1s. In fact, in that class, none of the BLACKJACK’s records have been superseded.

http://records.fai.org/general_aviation/aircraft.asp?id=1157

The b-1A failed

It didn’t fail, Carter cancelled it in favor of the ATB.

Another thing is that there is a paradox actually, the main threat of low level penetration (asides of the larger range AAM, granted due the difference of heigh), are the manpads/mobile sams, things that are not taken out in the first nuclear interchange

The B-1B, like the Tu-160, has a complex EW suite for dealing with SAM radars. Does either one work as well as advertised? We’d have to start a war to find out. One should hope that the Tu-160’s system isn’t related to the one used by the Tu-22MR though, or it’s at the very least vulnerable to an SA-11 shot! And don’t count on a lot of MANPADS shots after a nuke exchange. Are they even EM hardened? The operators surely aren’t at any rate!

A logical step would seem to be the integration of multiple smaller anti-ship missiles (something like Klub, Yakhont or even BrahMos) in place of the monstrous and extremely aged Kh-22s they currently carry, at least on the AV-MF examples.

Dionis mentioned Kh-22 upgrades already, but I’ll add that the Tu-22M3 can carry the Kh-15 as well.

Also, to the BLACKJACK range issue, Gordon’s Red Star book gives 12,300 km with 12 Kh-55s.

[color=red]Thread cleaned up again. Scooter and Devil’s Advocate, and the rest of you lot, this is your final warning (note that I did clean this crap out once already and tell everyone to play nice). I’ve been a little more lenient this time around as my web connection was retarded for a bit and I wasn’t able to get in here and stomp this out earlier but that ends now as I am back at full power. The next individual who wants to turn this into a nationalistic pissing contest will get two points for being disruptive.[/color]

The test jets are used sporadically by Tupolev for trials of new equipment and whatnot. Probably support the Kh-101/102 program as well. 16 are in service with I think three test jets still on the ramp at Zhukovskiy. There were six (I think, I might be adding wrong) but one was lost early on, and one has been seen scrapped (that being the first example). One of them was obviously sent to Kazan for refitting and is now one of the 16 on strength at Engels. That leaves three.

As for producing them, they were still in production in 1992 when work was halted. Incomplete airframes have been finished and sent to Engels on two occasions now, and who knows how many airframe components were still inside the massive assembly halls. There weren’t going to be parts lying about for 100 jets all at once, but there could be sufficient bits to complete a small number of airframes. Apart from the mostly complete examples that they’ve been delivering, of course.

It did carry missiles, the Mirage IVP carried a single nuclear ASMP on the centerline. It was only used by the French Air Force, and they have all been retired.

Two engines might be better if they intend to export it, as some nations may prefer the added reliability. Also allows for the idea of differential thrust vectoring, which they could exploit to delete the vertical tails and further reduce the signature.

If Sweden is buying them, they may view the jet as an eventual Gripen supplement/replacement down the line. 10 jets lets them set up an evaluation unit to start learning how to employ LO assets in combat and show them off to potential buyers. This might be a little too late for serious export success, but it could be a threat to the JSF if that program suffers any serious delays or cutbacks.

Any idea if they tanked on the way back?

I don’t think so because of the big deal that they made out of doing it when they went back from Venezuela. It suggested that they weren’t doing IFR on long range sorties up until that point, at least with the Tu-160.

I suppose. I’d think they’d need a Backfire replacement more simply because if it got to the point they’d need to attack something from long distances their missiles would be the weapon of choice I’d think.

See, I need to find where I read that the Su-34 was going to take over some of the BACKFIRE’s roles. If they actually mean to do that then it makes sense that their next focus would be a new long-range bomber.

If you are going for low penetration, what do you need long range weapons for? One would assume you are using some sort of Kh-15 variant.

Even something like the Kh-15 will lose a lot of range if its fired at low altitude. And if you are using something even shorter ranged, you’re putting yourself in a potentially more dangerous situation.

What they are looking for is a new airframe for the future.. Was the Tu-95 dumped when the Tu-160 came out?

The Tu-95MS was brought about to give an ALCM capability in greater numbers quicker than had they waited for BLACKJACKs to be built in numbers. Given that they ended up having 6 BLACKJACKs for a while during the end of the Cold War and into the early history of the Russian Federation before they reappropriated Ukrainian examples, it was a pretty good idea in hindsight.

I don’t buy it. There is nothing to say they aren’t making new air frames.

Kommersant has reported on the resumption of production. Bliznyuk was reported back in 2007 as saying that they had unfinished airframes and that one of them was being completed for delivery (which has occurred). With a desire to only end up with 25-30 jets in total Figure 6 from Engels, 8 from Priluki, one new jet, one test jet returned to service, subtract one that was lost…you get 15 total with 10 to 15 left to make. Two or three of them are going to be incomplete airframes that are finished. That leaves at least 7 to 12 jets to make. If they restarted the plant it wouldn’t take until 2030 to build them, which is when the RusAF has stated they want to have them all available so they can have two units. That leaves one to assume that they’re using components left over from 1992 when they still thought they were building 100 of them until Yeltsin said nyet. Otherwise, a new Tu-160 airframe with modernization applied would be the perfect solution rather than looking for an all-new platform. It just seems that things don’t match up right for them to be building brand new jets out of brand new components, but I could be wrong. Hence why I said “the current theory”.