Tu-160 "White Swan"

MOSCOW, June 29 - RIA Novosti. Russia's largest holding company in the electronic industry "Concern Radio-electronic technology" (KRET, is a "Rostec") developed for the Russian long-range aviation aircraft, including strategic bombers, Tu-160 missile, celestial navigation system which allows to determine the coordinates of the aircraft on the basis of data on the position of stars, said on Monday, RIA Novosti press-service KRET.

"KRET developed for the Russian Air Force long-range aviation, including Tu-160, celestial navigation system ANS-2009, allowing to accurately determine the coordinates of the aircraft on the basis of data on the position of the stars. Astronavigation system development group is to determine the velocity and position of the object with accuracy, independent of the duration of the flight, "- reported in KRET.

At the heart of the device is "calculating coordinates of an object, measured relative positions of the stars."
"On the basis of this information, the calculating unit, interface and control (BVSK) defines the geographical coordinates and the true course of the object", - said the press service.

According to the advisor of the Deputy Director General KRET Vladimir Mikheev, this method is "the most reliable in combat when navigation satellite systems can be disabled by the enemy."

"ANS-2009 can be installed on a plane with the strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS), do not require an external guidance or signals coming from outside," - said Mikheyev, whose words the press service.

According to Mikheev, "the integration of the various on-board navigation devices (SINS, ANS, SNA, etc.) to create a fully autonomous navigation system that is able to obtain precise coordinates due to correction."

"The technical and technological backlog, resulting in the progress of the system ANS-2009 will be used in the PAK DA" - the concern.

The Tu-160 - a supersonic strategic bomber-rocket carrier with variable sweep wing, designed by Tupolev in the 1970s - 1980s. It is in service since 1987. It is the largest and most powerful in the history of military aviation supersonic aircraft with variable geometry wing, as well as the heaviest combat aircraft in the world, with the highest among the bombers maximum takeoff weight. Among the pilots was nicknamed the "White Swan".

In April, Defense Minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu said that "today it is necessary to start solving problems not only for the maintenance of good order and modernization of the aircraft fleet of long-range aircraft, but also for the reproduction of the Tu-160 missile." According to Shoigu, the Tu-160 - "a unique machine ahead of time for a few decades and is still not fully utilized inherent in it structural opportunities."

"Concern Radio-electronic technology" (KRET) - Russia's largest holding company in the electronic industry, established in 2009, is part of the state corporation "Rostec." Main activities: development and production of complex systems and avionics for civil and military aircraft, radar airborne, the state identification, electronic warfare systems, instrumentation for various applications, electrical connectors, connectors and cable assemblies.

George1 wrote:KRET: Tu-160 and Tu-95 will be able to build a route without satellite signals

GarryB wrote:15-16 of any large aircraft is a small fleet which limits its potential and increases costs.

Having 100-150 Tu-160s and they probably could have retired the Tu-95MS completely, but building that many would be rather too expensive too.

The Bears are good for another 10-15 years at least and are perfectly fine for the role they are intended for.

A larger fleet of Blackjacks will make them rather more effective and new engines will likely improve performance significantly and reduce the urgency for PAK DA.

Originally the early claims regarding PAK DA was a hypersonic super bomber... which would have been enormously expensive to make and operate... hopefully putting the Blackjack back into production means the introduction of the PAK DA can be delayed and its design parameters could be made a little more ambitious.

rather than a subsonic flying wing... I would like to see a supersonic super cruising flying wing with horizontal tail and no vertical tail surface to reduce drag and RCS.

Using new generation engines with thrust vectoring to negate the need for vertical fins and perhaps allow supersonic flight without AB would greatly increase range performance and vastly improve the time to flight distance.

As an example the Blackjack would fly most of the first part of its flight at subsonic speeds and only fly supersonically for perhaps a 2,000km portion near the target to evade interception... so the entire 12,000km odd range flight would still take 6-8 hours.... whereas a flying wing moving at mach 1.6 all the way could dramatically reduce that flight time without burning an enormous amount of fuel.

More importantly if the engines are based on the Blackjacks engines then any improvements can be retrofitted to the Blackjack to perhaps allow supercruising performance too... which should increase supersonic flight range.

Delaying production of the Blackjacks to 2023 is interesting... I am wondering if they are planning to revise the aircrafts design and make it a fixed wing aircraft with a more modern and sophisticated wing shape... it would reduce weight and complication...