Two Russian Aerospace Tupolev Tu-22m3 Supersonic, long-range strategic and maritime strike bombers,
NATO reporting name: Backfire are taxiing to a runway somewhere in Russia.
Escorting them today are Sukhoi SU-35 Multi-role, air superiority fighters NATO reporting name:
Flanker-E
Tu-22m3 bomber is a product of the cold War Arms race, driven by the Soviets requirements
to create the first supersonic bomber for the air forces of the Soviet Union, enabling
it to be able to bomb targets as far away as the USA.
Its story starts in the 1950's.
the Soviet Union's main bombers were the 114ft long Tupolev Tu-16, a twin jet engined, strategic
heavy bomber, NATO reporting name: Badger with a range of 7,200 km (4500 miles) and
a maximum speed of 1050 kilometres an hour it was Introduced into the soviet Air Force
in 1954, the bomber could carry a range of missiles and dependant on variant could hold
9,000 kg (20,000lb) of bombs.
The Soviet Air Force also operated the 155ft long Myasishchev M-4 / 3M Molot, NATO reporting
name Bison introduced around 1956 its original designed role to target the USA fell well
short of its required range, achieving 5,600 km (3,500 miles).
Famously or infamously dependant on which side you are on, it was this aircraft, the
early variant model Myasishchev M-4 Bison in July 1955,
at the Soviet Aviation Day demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield, onlookers witnessed
Soviet aircrews operating ten Bison bombers, filling the sky above with its impressive
165 ft wingspan, the aircraft flew past the reviewing stand, flew out of sight, quickly
turned around, and then flew past the stands again with eight more bombers.
That presented the illusion that there were 28 aircraft in the flyby.
Western analysts, extrapolating from the illusionary 28 aircraft, judged that by 1960, the Soviet
Air Force would have 800 of these giant aircraft, it is this one event alone that created the
term "Bomber Gap" with the US responding by building hundreds of Boeing B-47s and B-52s
to counter this perceived threat.
However, a little more than 100 of these four jet engined aircraft were built resulting
in several updates, most were converted in the 1970s and 80s to tanker aircraft.
The last of the 1950's main soviet bombers, seen here is the Tupolev Tu-95, NATO reporting
name: "Bear" a large, four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform.
First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the Long-Range Aviation of the Soviet
Air Forces in 1956, with a range of 15,000 km (9,300 miles) it is far enough to threaten key targets in the United States
The Soviet Union in the 1950's was aware of Supersonic aircraft projects in the United
States, but even the Soviets must have been surprised when on 11th November 1956, the
United States Air Force conducted the first flight of the worlds first supersonic bomber,
the Convair B-58 Hustler, the aircraft had an impressive speed of Mach 2.0 (1,319 mph),
the aircraft was incredibly sophisicated for the era, which in part was why It took another
5 years before the aircraft was introduced into the United Staes Air Force, probably
unknown to the Soviets at the time, the B-58 had only a moderate range, achieveing around
3,220 km (2,000 miles) when carrying a standard load of 5 nuclear weapons (approx 5,000kg
load).
it also required multiple air to air refueling during most of its flights, supplied from
the ever reliable KC-135 air to air refueling tanker fleet.
The Aircraft was difficult to fly, incredibly expensive to produce, in todays money around
181 million dollars each, its complexity required very specialized equipment and highly trained
maintenance teams, Each B-58 cost three times as much to operate than the B-52.
As a result of high running costs and overall performance factors only 116 aircraft were
built, 26 of these were lost in accidents and after only 10 years in service it was
retired in 1970.
So this brings us to the Tupolev Tu-22, NATO reporting name: Blinder, the first supersonic
bomber to enter production in the Soviet Union.
During this time, in the early 1960's both the Soviet Air Force Jet engined strategic
bombers Bison or Badger had not met the operational range requirements to conduct long distance
flights, leaving only the Tu-95 turboprop-powered aircraft with a cruise speed of 710 km/h (440
mph) really able to carry out attacks against the US, its chances of acheiving strategic
military strikes against US targets was likely to be very low, however, Soviet and American
strategists had calculated Bomber aircraft losses to be very high, but in this dark era
of possible Nuclear conflict, only a few aircraft needed to reach its target.
The Soviets hopes of increasing its bomber strike range with a realistic capability to
attack US targets now rested with the TU-22 with the first prototype "105" flying in 1958,
just two years after the B-58 made its appearance, but the "105" produced a dissapointing speed
and range, The aircraft underwent a number of significant
changes, and named "105A" it first flew 7 September 1959, but under constant pressure
from the Soviet Military to produce a Supersonic Jet, the manufacturer Tupolev produced 20
versions of the 105A, even though testing of the 105A was incomplete.
The first serial-production aircraft, named Tu-22B flew 22nd September 1960, the Soviets
were once again keen to show the world the Supersonic Bomber race was very much alive
and the Tu-22B was presented to the public in the Tushino Aviation Day parade on 9 July
1961, with a flypast of 10 aircraft
The Tu-22B entered service in 1962, and in a very short time began developing faults,
resulting in the grounding of some aircraft and widespread unserviceability issues, several
crashes were recorded with an unspecified loss of aircrew.
The aircraft it turned out was arkward to fly, especially during landings the pilot
visibility was blocked due to a very high panel blocking the view on the right hand
side of the cockpit, also controls were out of reach of the strapped in pilots.
The Tu-22's handling characteristics proved to be very dangerous.
Its landing speed was 100 km/h (60 mph) greater than previous bombers and it had a tendency
to pitch up and strike its tail upon landing.
The aircraft was both disappointmenting and an embarrassment, and worse, was still lacking
both the speed and range that had been expected.
It was produced in relatively small numbers, around 300, especially compared to the Tupolev
Tu-16 that it was designed to replace.
It became increasingly clear that the aircraft was inadequate in its role as a bomber.
The aircraft was later adapted for other roles, notably as the Tu-22R reconnaissance aircraft
and as carriers for the long-range Kh-22 antiship missile.
Tupolev, whose expertise is with bombers, offered the Soviet Air Force an updated version
of the Tu-22.
It would be a completely new, almost a start from scratch development, but incorporating
some of the Tu-22 equipment that proved reliable, enabling Tupolev to bring down the costs.
The Soviet government was at first unsure about the need to approve the development
of a replacement aircraft so soon after the Tu-22 had just entered service.
Some leading soviet military commanders and even the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in
1964, felt the way forward was to develop greater offensive and defensive missile systems,
scrappping or relegating the expensive bomber forces to minor offensive roles.
So confusingly, which was the intention, the Soviet Air Force and Tupolev, in order to
save face regarding the Tu-22's operational deficiencies and to stave off criticisms from
the ICBM lobby, agreed to pass off the design as an update of the Tu-22 in their discussions
with the government.
The new top secret aircraft was designated Tu-22M, its first flight was August 1969 and
this time it was US Intelligience who were more than surprised by a satellite image of
this supersonic aircraft, after all Nikita Khrushchev was adamant that ICBMs would render
the bomber obsolete.
Tupolev stopped production of the Tu-22 in 1969 after it was confident the Tu-22M would
be a considerable improvement on its previous flawed aircraft.
The Tu- 22M NATO reporting name: Backfire, is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing, long-range
strategic and maritime strike bomber, its first production model was named Tu-22M2,
and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1972, the aircraft did have its issues, it
suffered from widespread maintenance problems during its service with the Soviet forces,
poor manufacturing quality probably as a result of pressure to produce the aircraft quickly
combined with government bureaucracy, which hampered the provision of spare parts to allow
the servicing of the aircraft resulting in some aircraft grounded for up to six months.
The aircraft was a vast improvement on the tu-22.
In 1977 the Soviets began test flying an updated Backfire, the Tu-22M3 Backfire C, introduced
into Soviet operations in 1983 the aircraft its capable 1,241 mph (mach 1.88) and dependant
on bomb load can acheive an operational range of 6,800 km (4,200 miles) The aircraft is
Primarily designed as a missile carrier.
In 2015 the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War involved Russian Aerospace
Forces deploying 12 Tu-22M3 bombers flying form Russia to hit targets in Syria, the Tu-22M3
has maintained a presence ever since.
The Backfire main weapon is a 500kg kh-32 anti ship missile with a range of 1000 kilometres,
it can be armed with conventional or nuclear warheads, however, recent operations in syria
have recorded the backfire using conventional freefall bombs.
The backfire can mount FAB 500 general purpose bombs to two fusealage mounted pylons, but
standard bomb loading is generally in the enclosed bomb bay, overall using wing and
fuselage pylons and the internal weapons bay, the backfire has a capacity to carry 24,000 kg
or 53,000 Ib of weapons
On 15 April 2022, Ukrainian Defence Ministry stated Russia used Tu-22M3 bombers to strike
targets in Mariupol, the backfire bomber has subsequently been used to strike further Ukrainian
targets in the Donbass area.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the Ukrainian Air Force and Navy actually inherited
a large number of backfire bombers and even a few of the Tu-22 blinder, they also had
more than 400 Kh-22 cruise missiles, these were all scrapped under the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction agreement led by the US, this was created for the purpose of securing
and dismantling weapons of mass destruction and their associated infrastructure in the
former states of the Soviet Union.
The bombers were scrapped in 2006, leaving the Ukraine without any heavy bomber capabilities.
The Russian federation is in the process of modernising some of its remaining fleet of
approximately 60 Tu-22M3 to the Tu-22M3M standard.
They will use engines from Tu-160M2, with 80 percent of avionics replaced or upgraded,
the aircraft will be adapted to use Hypersonic weapon systems.
On 16 August 2018, as seen here, the first modernized aircraft was unveiled during a
roll-out ceremony at the Kazan Aviation Plant.
Service life will be extended to 40 plus years