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Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?
Remember the Soviet "Blackjack" bomber that the U.S.S.R. started to
deploy in the late 1980s? Wasn't this plane a virtual copy of the American B-1 in many ways? What about it's range? Could the BlackJack bomber have taken off in the Soviet Union and bombed the United States? Or was it closer to a medium-range bomber like the "Backfire"? |
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Mike wrote:
Remember the Soviet "Blackjack" bomber that the U.S.S.R. started to deploy in the late 1980s? First flight 18 December 1981. First production flight 10 October 1984. Operational with 184th GvTBAP at Priluki, Ukraine, 17 April 1987. Currently approx 15 operational at Engels, Russia. Wasn't this plane a virtual copy of the American B-1 in many ways? Same general shape, very much larger and supersonic. Max take-off weight 606,260lb - (B-1B - 477,000lb). Max speed 1,242mph - (B-1B 789mph). What about it's range? Could the BlackJack bomber have taken off in the Soviet Union and bombed the United States? Range, loaded on internal fuel - 7,640 miles (B-1B - 3,444 miles) Equipped for IFR. Or was it closer to a medium-range bomber like the "Backfire"? No http://mysite.freeserve.com/aircraft_pages/tu-160.html For a size comparison - scroll down about halfway at :- http://www.flankerman.fsnet.co.uk/modl_tu160.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ Ken Duffey - Flanker Freak & Russian Aviation Enthusiast Flankers Website - http://www.flankers.co.uk/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ |
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On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 20:42:21 +0000, Ken Duffey
wrote: Mike wrote: Remember the Soviet "Blackjack" bomber that the U.S.S.R. started to deploy in the late 1980s? First flight 18 December 1981. First production flight 10 October 1984. Operational with 184th GvTBAP at Priluki, Ukraine, 17 April 1987. Currently approx 15 operational at Engels, Russia. Wasn't this plane a virtual copy of the American B-1 in many ways? Same general shape, very much larger and supersonic. Max take-off weight 606,260lb - (B-1B - 477,000lb). Max speed 1,242mph - (B-1B 789mph). What about it's range? Could the BlackJack bomber have taken off in the Soviet Union and bombed the United States? Range, loaded on internal fuel - 7,640 miles (B-1B - 3,444 miles) Equipped for IFR. Those are brochure numbers for the Blackjack. In the real world (at least as far as FAI records go) the B-1 has the Blackjack beat in the paylaod/range department. |
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Scott Ferrin wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 20:42:21 +0000, Ken Duffey wrote: Mike wrote: Remember the Soviet "Blackjack" bomber that the U.S.S.R. started to deploy in the late 1980s? First flight 18 December 1981. First production flight 10 October 1984. Operational with 184th GvTBAP at Priluki, Ukraine, 17 April 1987. Currently approx 15 operational at Engels, Russia. Wasn't this plane a virtual copy of the American B-1 in many ways? Same general shape, very much larger and supersonic. Max take-off weight 606,260lb - (B-1B - 477,000lb). Max speed 1,242mph - (B-1B 789mph). What about it's range? Could the BlackJack bomber have taken off in the Soviet Union and bombed the United States? Range, loaded on internal fuel - 7,640 miles (B-1B - 3,444 miles) Equipped for IFR. Those are brochure numbers for the Blackjack. How about B1 are the cited numbers for B1 are brochure numbers as well? In the real world (at least as far as FAI records go) the B-1 has the Blackjack beat in the paylaod/range department. In its department where B1 is the only one amybe. Tu160 is much bigger?much faster and longer lange. Anyway do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" Michael |
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Anyway
do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" Perhaps, but only a very few. Their mission capable rates were as low as 25%, and that was in 1995. I've told this story before, but its a good one and still makes me chuckle. In 1995 Barksdale AFB was host to two Russian Bear Bombers (Tu-95), their crews and leadership. On the second day of their visit, several BUFF and Bear crews were out on the flightline exchanging tours of their respective aircraft. A B-1B from Dyess had weather diverted into Barksdale the previous night and as the BUFF and Bear crews were doing their exterior tour of the Bear, the B-1B attempted to leave and head back to Dyess. Due to the tremendous noise the B-1 created as it took off, all conversation, both Russian and translated English stopped and everyone diverted their attention to the B-1 taking off. As the B-1 got halfway down the runway, and almost directly in front of the Bears, a puff of white smoke appeared and the throttles were brought back to idle. Everyone continued to watch as the B-1 taxied to the end of the runway where it was joined by emergency response vehicles. As the B-1 made the turn off the runway, hydraulic fluid could be seen, literally, pouring out from underneath the aircraft. The B-1 stopped, the entry hatch opened and the crew performed an emergency egress. With the noise now gone, both BUFF and Bear crews returned their attention to the exterior of the Bear. Before the tour could resume, one of the Bear crewmembers looked at the others and uttered something in Russian which made the rest of the Bear crewmembers burst out in laughter. When a BUFF squadron commander asked what the joke was, the translator looked afraid to answer. Just then in pretty good English, one of the Bear crewmembers pointed to the B-1B, now in the hammerhead and surrounded by emergency vehicles and said; "Just like Tu-160....piece of ****". At that, all the BUFF crews began to roar with laughter, which made the Bear crews, and their concerned translator, more relaxed and they began to laugh out loud again. It was truely a moment of international bonding, crews of bombers built in the 1960s having a laugh at the expense of their newer "replacement aircraft". Any way, when asked about the Tu-160's mission capable rate, a rather gruff Russian Colonel said less than 1 in 4 is flyable at any given time. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
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Yep, the B-1 is a real piece of ****...
Responsible for over 10% of the DMPIs struck in OIF with less than 1% of the sorties... 9.4 DMPIs struck per sortie... Went downtown Baghdad and Tikrit everyday, even in broad daylight, sometimes with no SEAD support... MC rate better than many aircraft during OIF... "The weapon of choice"--CAOC Director Hope you had a good laugh back then... BONE WSO "BUFDRVR" wrote in message ... Anyway do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" Perhaps, but only a very few. Their mission capable rates were as low as 25%, and that was in 1995. I've told this story before, but its a good one and still makes me chuckle. In 1995 Barksdale AFB was host to two Russian Bear Bombers (Tu-95), their crews and leadership. On the second day of their visit, several BUFF and Bear crews were out on the flightline exchanging tours of their respective aircraft. A B-1B from Dyess had weather diverted into Barksdale the previous night and as the BUFF and Bear crews were doing their exterior tour of the Bear, the B-1B attempted to leave and head back to Dyess. Due to the tremendous noise the B-1 created as it took off, all conversation, both Russian and translated English stopped and everyone diverted their attention to the B-1 taking off. As the B-1 got halfway down the runway, and almost directly in front of the Bears, a puff of white smoke appeared and the throttles were brought back to idle. Everyone continued to watch as the B-1 taxied to the end of the runway where it was joined by emergency response vehicles. As the B-1 made the turn off the runway, hydraulic fluid could be seen, literally, pouring out from underneath the aircraft. The B-1 stopped, the entry hatch opened and the crew performed an emergency egress. With the noise now gone, both BUFF and Bear crews returned their attention to the exterior of the Bear. Before the tour could resume, one of the Bear crewmembers looked at the others and uttered something in Russian which made the rest of the Bear crewmembers burst out in laughter. When a BUFF squadron commander asked what the joke was, the translator looked afraid to answer. Just then in pretty good English, one of the Bear crewmembers pointed to the B-1B, now in the hammerhead and surrounded by emergency vehicles and said; "Just like Tu-160....piece of ****". At that, all the BUFF crews began to roar with laughter, which made the Bear crews, and their concerned translator, more relaxed and they began to laugh out loud again. It was truely a moment of international bonding, crews of bombers built in the 1960s having a laugh at the expense of their newer "replacement aircraft". Any way, when asked about the Tu-160's mission capable rate, a rather gruff Russian Colonel said less than 1 in 4 is flyable at any given time. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
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"BUFDRVR" wrote in message ... Anyway do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" Perhaps, but only a very few. Their mission capable rates were as low as 25%, and that was in 1995. I've told this story before, but its a good one and still makes me chuckle. In 1995 Barksdale AFB was host to two Russian Bear Bombers (Tu-95), their crews and leadership. On the second day of their visit, several BUFF and Bear crews were out on the flightline exchanging tours of their respective aircraft. A B-1B from Dyess had weather diverted into Barksdale the previous night and as the BUFF and Bear crews were doing their exterior tour of the Bear, the B-1B attempted to leave and head back to Dyess. Due to the tremendous noise the B-1 created as it took off, all conversation, both Russian and translated English stopped and everyone diverted their attention to the B-1 taking off. As the B-1 got halfway down the runway, and almost directly in front of the Bears, a puff of white smoke appeared and the throttles were brought back to idle. Everyone continued to watch as the B-1 taxied to the end of the runway where it was joined by emergency response vehicles. As the B-1 made the turn off the runway, hydraulic fluid could be seen, literally, pouring out from underneath the aircraft. The B-1 stopped, the entry hatch opened and the crew performed an emergency egress. With the noise now gone, both BUFF and Bear crews returned their attention to the exterior of the Bear. Before the tour could resume, one of the Bear crewmembers looked at the others and uttered something in Russian which made the rest of the Bear crewmembers burst out in laughter. When a BUFF squadron commander asked what the joke was, the translator looked afraid to answer. Just then in pretty good English, one of the Bear crewmembers pointed to the B-1B, now in the hammerhead and surrounded by emergency vehicles and said; "Just like Tu-160....piece of ****". At that, all the BUFF crews began to roar with laughter, which made the Bear crews, and their concerned translator, more relaxed and they began to laugh out loud again. It was truely a moment of international bonding, crews of bombers built in the 1960s having a laugh at the expense of their newer "replacement aircraft". Any way, when asked about the Tu-160's mission capable rate, a rather gruff Russian Colonel said less than 1 in 4 is flyable at any given time. BUFDRVR That's a great story! Here's another. In late 1989, my crew was selected to fly a B-1B to Luke AFB for a kind of static display. This display was arranged as the reciprocal for the Minister of Defense of the USSR and his staff. You might recall that our CJCS visited the USSR in the middle/late '80s and this was the U.S. turn to reciprocate this unprecedented, high-level military exchange. On the ramp at Luke, arranged in a semi-circle, was a KC-10, C-5, F-15C, F-16, B-1B and B-52H. At the arranged time we all trooped out to our jets and waited. Soon, a caravan of civilian stretch limos, suburbans and staff cars pulled up and out gets a big crowd of military, U.S. & USSR, and civilians. After some milling about, the civilians (wives of the visitors and their hosts) head off and the military types walked slowly into the lare semicircle of aircraft. A couple of minutes later, they come walking with purpose straight over to us, a Major and three Captains. Sooo, this is my 15 minutes of fame I figure and I stride out to greet the highest ranking military member of, arguably, the 2nd strongest nation in the world. We exchange salutes, shake hands, he looks over the Bone, and I ask if he'd like a tour inside. A hush falls over the crowd, the MoD looks pensive and says........ "Nyet!" I was relieved since he was a big dude and I'm not sure it would have been that easy getting him up there. Anyway, he sent two staff members with me to go inside, and several others with the Co, O and D for a tour of the outside. I have no idea what rank the two officers were that went up with me, just that they were bomber pilots who were now working in the MoD. One of them spoke good English so he translated for the other guy and me. The Russian only speaker asked pretty innocuous questions about how the aircraft worked, how it was to fly, my thoughts about its performance etc. I told him the general P.R. answers but gave him a fairly detailed description of our mainteance and birthing-of-a-new-weapon system problems (those were in the news a lot at that time) that our Ops and MX people were battling through. He listened and said that they were having the same problems with the Blackjack only much worse. They had difficulty getting more than a couple of sorties a day off the ground. I told him that we were getting a lot more off the ground than that and were flying, fleet wide, several dozen sorties a day. He responded that they knew that in the MoD and were convinced that the "American Air Force" would solve the problems and the B-1B would be their biggest air breathing threat. I then said that I had flown the B-52 for 5 years and that there were many more B-52s on alert than B-1Bs and he waved his hand and said "...not a problem, we can shoot down slow B-52, we are not sure about shooting down B-1". (Of course, the whole world knew that a C-172 could fly into Red Square unharmed so I took that statement with a grain of salt). After some more pleasantries, we climbed out and he handed me a couple of little boxes with hero of the soviet union type trinkets inside and they went on their way to the next aircraft. I noticed that the MoD and the crew looked in the fighters, talked to the crew of the Buff and the other heavies but didn't go inside any off them, and then trooped back to their caravan. They drove out to some bleachers at midfield and soon the TBirds showed up and did a show. Before the group left, a Lt Col came up to us in a hurry and asked if we wanted our picture taken with the VCJCS. I said sure, bring him on over. LOL. Pretty neat day. Anyway, I got the distinct impression that even in the early days of the B-1B fielding, the people responsible for planning the defense of the USSR knew of the teething problems the Bone was going through, but were distinctly worried about the Bone making it through their defenses. So I guess the Piece-of-**** scale is proportional and sliding based on rank and seriousness of the job of the observer. Regards, Jim |
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BUFDRVR wrote:
Anyway do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" Perhaps, but only a very few. Their mission capable rates were as low as 25%, and that was in 1995. I've told this story before, but its a good one and still makes me chuckle. In 1995 Barksdale AFB was host to two Russian Bear Bombers (Tu-95), their crews and leadership. On the second day of their visit, several BUFF and Bear crews were out on the flightline exchanging tours of their respective aircraft. A B-1B from Dyess had weather diverted into Barksdale the previous night and as the BUFF and Bear crews were doing their exterior tour of the Bear, the B-1B attempted to leave and head back to Dyess. Due to the tremendous noise the B-1 created as it took off, all conversation, both Russian and translated English stopped and everyone diverted their attention to the B-1 taking off. As the B-1 got halfway down the runway, and almost directly in front of the Bears, a puff of white smoke appeared and the throttles were brought back to idle. Everyone continued to watch as the B-1 taxied to the end of the runway where it was joined by emergency response vehicles. As the B-1 made the turn off the runway, hydraulic fluid could be seen, literally, pouring out from underneath the aircraft. The B-1 stopped, the entry hatch opened and the crew performed an emergency egress. With the noise now gone, both BUFF and Bear crews returned their attention to the exterior of the Bear. Before the tour could resume, one of the Bear crewmembers looked at the others and uttered something in Russian which made the rest of the Bear crewmembers burst out in laughter. When a BUFF squadron commander asked what the joke was, the translator looked afraid to answer. Just then in pretty good English, one of the Bear crewmembers pointed to the B-1B, now in the hammerhead and surrounded by emergency vehicles and said; "Just like Tu-160....piece of ****". At that, all the BUFF crews began to roar with laughter, which made the Bear crews, and their concerned translator, more relaxed and they began to laugh out loud again. It was truely a moment of international bonding, crews of bombers built in the 1960s having a laugh at the expense of their newer "replacement aircraft". Any way, when asked about the Tu-160's mission capable rate, a rather gruff Russian Colonel said less than 1 in 4 is flyable at any given time. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" Bufdrvr, I have been meaning to ask you this since last August.......... I visited the MAKS airshow at Zhukovsky, Moscow and amongst the aircraft on display was an operational example of both the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 from Engels. Also on display - for the first time - were some visiting USAF a/c - KC-135, C-130, F-15, F-16 plus a Buff from Minot - I just checked my photo of it - and I can't make out the full serial - but it was AF xx 027 on the fin and 1027 on the forward fuselage. It also had a red fin flash with yellow lettering that looks something like 'Badoms' ?? I took the photo from a tethered balloon at the limit of my lens! We couldn't get near the crews for the Russian crowd (not that I wanted too - I was there to see Russian a/c, I can see Buffs at RAF Fairford anytime). The crews of all the visiting a/c must have been overwhelmed by the Russian public who were asking for autographs, getting their photos taken with the American running dog agressors etc What I wondered was whether you had heard any feedback from these visiting crews?? How was the evil empire ? How did they enjoy the visit, what was the Russian hospitality like, how were they treated, what was their impressions of the RusAF etc etc. How did they route to Moscow - did they mingle with the crews of the Tu-95/Tu-160 etc Anything ? Cheers Ken ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ Ken Duffey - Flanker Freak & Russian Aviation Enthusiast Flankers Website - http://www.flankers.co.uk/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++ |
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#10
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Range, loaded on internal fuel - 7,640 miles (B-1B - 3,444 miles) Equipped for IFR. Those are brochure numbers for the Blackjack. How about B1 are the cited numbers for B1 are brochure numbers as well? Pretty much from what I understand. The B-1 is definitely faster than 789 mph though I'd be surprised if any operational aircraft had done a takeoff at 477,000lbs. In the real world (at least as far as FAI records go) the B-1 has the Blackjack beat in the paylaod/range department. In its department where B1 is the only one amybe. Tu160 is much bigger?much faster and longer lange. Speed over a closed circuit of 5000 km with 30000 kg payload : 1054.21 km/h Date of flight: 17/09/1987 Pilot: H. Brent HEDGPETH (USA) Crew: Robert A. CHAMBERLAIN (copilot) Course/place: Palmdale, CA (USA) Aircraft: Rockwell B-1B (4 General Electric F 101-GE-102, 14 700 kg each) Registered 'S/N70' Speed over a closed circuit of 5000 km with 30000 kg payload : 1017.80 km/h Date of flight: 28/05/1990 Pilot: Serguei OSSIPOV (USSR) Crew: D.N. MATVEEV (USSR) Course/place: Podmoskovnoe Aerodrome (USSR) Aircraft: Tupolev Aircraft "70N-304" (Tupolev TU-160 "Blackjack") (4 Model "P", 25 000 kg each) As you can see, with the same 30,000kg payload flown over a distance of 5000km, the Blackjack was slower than the B-1B. Since the Blackjack's record attempt was flown at a later date one would assume they'd try to beat the B-1's. If they did try they failed. The Blackjack also holds no 10,000km speed records while the B-1 does. While this in itself doesn't say the Blackjack can't fly that far, it doesn't exactly help it's case either. As for the Blackjack being faster, the lower speed of the B-1b was intentional. The original B-1A reached Mach 2.22 which was faster than the Blackjack. That speed was judged so important that pretty much nobody cared when they gave it up. As for the Blackjack being bigger. . .well if you think an aircraft that needs to be 27% heavier and 83% more powerful to do an inferior job is something to brag about. . .well, that's your business. Anyway do you have any doubts about the question asked "Could Blackjack bombers reach USA?" It probably had the range for a one way trip, but any aircraft that can fly far enough could say the same. |
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