Blinders in the desert

[msxyz]

The Tupolev Tu-22 'Blinder' has always been a fascinating plane for me. It has a very dart-like, menacing appearance. Designed around the same time of the Convair B-58, it was meant to me the successor of the Tupolev Tu-16 and Russia's first supersonic heavy bomber. Unfortunately, it was a very troublesome plane, with vicious flight characteristics (like a wing that flexed too much and caused control reversal already at low speeds) and even after a series of modifications (more like rushed patches) it was never popular neither with the crews nor with the top brass.

Entering service in 1962, by the end of the decade the much improved Tu-22M (an entirely different plane altogether, even if it shared the same name!) was ready to take its place. Maybe for this reason Soviet authorities allowed its sale abroad: even then, its only two customers were Libya and Iraq; under the flags of these two countries they were also used in actual combat missions (Chad, Iran) with some success.

The Libyan air-force maintained them airworthy at least till the turn of the century. But now they too have become empty shells scorched by the hot desert sun: there were some rumors in 2016-2018 that Gen. Haftar's forces would try to make them flyable again but I think it was only a rumor; can't see how they were supposed to bring back to life those lonely, sun and sand scorched, hulks back to life.

Next time I'm travelling to Moscow (hopefully this Autumn, Covid permitting) I definitively need to pay a visit to Monino. I Can't believe I couldn't find the time to visit such an important museum yet!

 

[Wurger]

 

[msxyz]

The Tu-22 must be the prime example of a plane looking good on paper, possibly the wind model too, but a complete disaster once it is built. It looks like attack aircraft (and it was often used in this role both by Libyan and Iraqi air forces flying low to strike high value targets) but has the size and mass of a heavy bomber. Issues like control reversal and poor directional stability hint at a frame which is not rigid enough. Engine placement allowed very clean and thin wings and wasp-waisted fuselage but they were too heavy (near 4 ton each!) and this made the whole aircraft tail heavy to the point that it could enter an unrecoverable deep stall at low speeds making landings a dangerous affair. There are other issues, like the poor visibility from the cockpit, that could have been anticipated already at design stage but these are only the "icing on the cake".

In hindsight, maybe the design was better suited to an heavy attack plane about the same size of the F-111 or Su-24, but it was too ambitious, considering also the technology available at the time to its builders, for a heavy bomber.

A couple of pics of the trainer version with stepped cockpit: