Tu-160 "White Swan"

dino00 wrote:The United Engine Corporation Rostec, within the framework of the Army-2021 International Military-Technical Forum, signed a state contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense for the supply of a batch of NK-32 series 02 engines for Tu-160M ​​strategic missile carriers in the amount of 7.5 billion rubles. Within two years, the customer will receive eight power plants.

https://rostec.ru/news/odk-postavit-minoborony-rf-vosem-dvigateley-dlya-tu-160m/

12.6 million dollars each

With power plant they mean a single engine or the whole provision needed for a plane?

marcellogo wrote:With power plant they mean a single engine or the whole  provision needed for a plane?

It means one engine. In Russian, there is a synonym for the word "Dvigatel" (Eng: Engine) – "Silovaya ustanovka", but it would be more correct to translate as "Power unit".

New Tu-160 under assembly. Not sure if its a new build or assembled from mothballed components out of long term storage, but still good to see

Arrow wrote:Construction is progressing slowly, unfortunately.  Russia must probably strongly modernize the Kazan plants if they want to build two types of Pak Da and Tu 160 strategic bombers. This is a huge challenge.It is interesting that they decided to use two types of strategic bombers.  Today, even the US and China plan to produce only one B 21 and H 20.

Planned production pace is 2 per year so it's progressing just fine

Big_Gazza wrote:New Tu-160 under assembly.  Not sure if its a new build or assembled from mothballed components out of long term storage, but still good to see

This must be the first all-new aircraft built from zero.

The two airplenes in modernization taken from the reserve are:

08-04 "Petr Deynekin" that was already in flight two years ago,
04-01 "Boris Veremey", whose modernization looked like this two years ago:



Surely these will be almost ready, it only remains to receive the new engines, of which the contract was signed several days ago

With these two and the 10 new contracted, there is a full squadron of 12 for complete the Engels regiment.

Arrow wrote:Construction is progressing slowly, unfortunately.  Russia must probably strongly modernize the Kazan plants if they want to build two types of Pak Da and Tu 160 strategic bombers. This is a huge challenge.It is interesting that they decided to use two types of strategic bombers.  Today, even the US and China plan to produce only one B 21 and H 20.

I highly doubt that the two types of aircraft are produced in series at the same time

The Tu-160M will be produced until 2035 (36 totally new are required, and also to modernize the soviet Tu-160´s )
And the PAK-DA a would be produced thereafter, taking near 15 years to create a prototype, do all the development and tests.

Strongly modernise?

Really??

The Ukraine was previously the only place on the planet a Tu-160 type aircraft could be built because that was the only place anyone could forge a swing wing structure that big out of titanium... now they can do that in Russia and I doubt they can still do it in the Ukraine.

They have been planning building Tu-160s and PAK DAs in Russia for a decade or more, I rather suspect it very unlikely they are not ready for production now...

They will have the titanium forge and composite production capacity has probably been ready for some time... they completed several aircraft already including a few that needed the new forge for completion and I suspect now aircraft can be completed from scratch now.

GarryB wrote:Strongly modernise?

Really??

The Ukraine was previously the only place on the planet a Tu-160 type aircraft could be built because that was the only place anyone could forge a swing wing structure that big out of titanium... now they can do that in Russia and I doubt they can still do it in the Ukraine.

They have been planning building Tu-160s and PAK DAs in Russia for a decade or more, I rather suspect it very unlikely they are not ready for production now...

They will have the titanium forge and composite production capacity has probably been ready for some time... they completed several aircraft already including a few that needed the new forge for completion and I suspect now aircraft can be completed from scratch now.

Tu-160 was and is build only in Kazan.

dino00 wrote:They will start serial production of PAK-DA much earlier than 2035.

In 2034 ?

Not really.
In 4 months we will be in 2022. Although they are capable of doing it, the development procedure, all the flights, tests etc ... of an aircraft started from zero are more than 10 years.
You just have to look at the Tu-160, which was resumed about 5 years ago and none of those that were already made since the 90's have yet been delivered.

In addition, you just have to use logic.
If they are going to manufacture Tu-160M, also modernize the Tu-160, also modernize the Tu-22M3 they have in reserve, also continue to repair the Tu-22M3 in service.
There is simply no staff for that much, you cannot call the employment service and ask for qualified personnel after 30 years without production, it is not the same as finding Amazon deliverymen or waiters.
New staff will also have to be trained. In the USSR, even the companies had their own universities to train their engineers and technicians.

Sure, all of this has been planned for a long time, but the process is long-term and in stages.
If you need a fleet of 160 bombers in total, and aircraft have a useful life of 40 years, on average, every year you have to build 4 machines and repair/modernize 12, it's that simple. You can't pretend to do it all in half the time

At the moment I want to see the new Tu-160M, later we will see

Tu-160 was and is build only in Kazan.

The centre wing box structure is made from a one piece wielded titanium box structure that was made in the Ukraine... they were assembled in Kazan, but without the titanium forge in the Ukraine they were not making any more.

My understanding is that when production stopped there were four incomplete aircraft in the factory... two were able to be completed because they made the parts needed to complete the airframes, but two were not completed because they lacked the centre section wing box structure which needs to be wielded in a near vacuum... which means you need a very large forge that can have the air removed.... the only one in the Soviet Union was in the Ukraine...

Russia ended up with about 16 Blackjacks... a bad number... too many to just scrap and forget about, but not enough to make a complete and viable force, but because of the cost of making a new forge it would not be cost effective unless they could commit to building a lot of planes there.

Even 50-60 new Tu-160s would not justify the cost, but making PAK DA there as well to replace the Bear and Backfire made it make sense.

For stealth aircraft the fewer bits you make it out of the stronger it is and the more stealthy it becomes because there are less edges... so the large forge for working on enormous bits of titanium makes sense for a new stealth bomber too.

In fact it might be useful in making MiG-41s too.

I think that the PAK DA will not go into production before 2030.

Honestly there is no rush... the Tu-95s are in excellent condition and will be more capable when they get their new upgrades, and the Tu-160 is a good aircraft and soon to be rather better. The Backfire is getting upgrades too and should be useful for the next ten years or so... and is their last remaining bomber right now that the Tu-160 is losing that capacity.

It makes more sense to invest in long range hypersonic cruise missiles and new weapons for these aircraft... the returns will be quicker and cheaper and easier... while in the long term there is a direction they are heading... rather than going backwards like the US with its new bombers and fighters... the B-21 is just a modified B-2 and the F-15 and their new F-16 are going backwards too... nice as they might be.

From my memory, Garry, this specialized welding chamber was in Kazan, and I am pretty sure about that.
Do you know why? Because in some of Putin's lectures, he put it as an example.
Described the process of "advising" by American "experts".
The first decision made with those "friendly advises" used to be dismantling the chamber for scrap metal.
They have spent more than a billion $ to reconstruct it again, only a few years ago.

GarryB wrote:

Tu-160 was and is build only in Kazan.

The centre wing box structure is made from a one piece wielded titanium box structure that was made in the Ukraine... they were assembled in Kazan, but without the titanium forge in the Ukraine they were not making any more.

What??? you have a source for that Ukrainian stuff?

Based on whatever I have read for Blackjack till now, the titanium welding shop was right there in Kazan itself.