Tu-160 "White Swan" #2

GarryB wrote:I had very long discussions with plenty of "experts" both in the west and in Russia itself who all said they could make no more Blackjacks because the critical wing titanium box structure was made in what is now Ukraine... I never questioned that at the time... if you have information about where the old box structures used to be made then I am happy to see it.

Either way it was no longer in a working configuration no matter where it was and had to be built in Russia for future construction of the type to continue.

Shoigu called the resumption of production of strategic missile carriers Tu-160 a victory

GarryB wrote:

BTW those images of the Kh-555 look to me to be Kh-55SM missiles without their saddle tanks fitted.

The actual Kh-555 missiles replaced the lightweight nuclear warhead with a much heavier conventional warhead so it has fins on its nose to help deal with the shift in cg... it also often had the saddle tanks too...

Thus, in Kazan, flight tests of the second modernized at the Kazan Aviation Plant (KAZ) named after S.P. Gorbunov's version of the Tu-160M ​​strategic bomber, equipped with new engines NK-32 series 02 (NK-32-02). The date of the first test flight of this aircraft after the upgrade was not reported. The aircraft is unpainted and has a new registration number RF-94444, and there is no information yet about which aircraft was upgraded (information is being specified).

The first prototype of the modernized strategic bomber Tu-160M ​​was previously converted from a combat bomber with the serial number 4-05 and the name "Igor Sikorsky", which previously had the tail number "14" and the registration number RF-94103. The plane madethe first flight after the completion of the conversion at the Kazan Aviation Plant named after S.P. Gorbunov on February 2, 2020. Then new engines NK-32 series 02 (NK-32-02) were installed on the plane for testing, the first flight with which at the KAZ airfield was made on November 3, 2020. After the completion of the flight test stage, this aircraft flew on March 10, 2021 to continue testing from Kazan to the flight test and development base of Tupolev PJSC in Zhukovsky.

The NK-32-02 engine is a modernized version of the standard NK-32 engine for the Tu-160, and is developed and manufactured by the Samara PJSC Kuznetsov (part of the PJSC United Engine Corporation of the State Corporation Rostec). The NK-32-02 is supposed to replace the NK-32 engines on the Tu-160 combat bombers upgraded to the Tu-160M ​​version (a total of 15 aircraft are supposed to be upgraded), and should also be installed on the new Tu-160M2 bombers (a total of 10 aircraft have been contracted) ...

It is officially announced that the NK-32 engine of the 02 series has significantly improved characteristics compared to the NK-32, which will allow the Tu-160M ​​/ M2 aircraft to increase the flight range by 1000 km.

Serial production of NK-32 engines was carried out from 1983 to 1993 at Kuibyshevsky (Samara) NPP Trud (now PJSC OLK-Kuznetsov as part of PJSC United Engine Corporation - UEC). Since 2013, PJSC "UEC-Kuznetsov" has been working on the resumption of production of NK-32 in the modernized appearance of the "second series". According to the first contract in 2016, UEC-Kuznetsov PJSC was supposed to deliver the first four NK-32-02 engines of the pilot batch by the end of 2018, which, in fact, however, were accepted only in August 2020 and then installed on the prototype Tu- 160M. In 2018, UEC-Kuznetsov PJSC received a state contract for the manufacture of 22 more NK-32-02 engines (presumably for the first four serially upgraded Tu-160M ​​and the prototype Tu-160M2 of a new construction, plus two spare). On August 24, 2021, during the seventh International Military-Technical Forum "Army-2021", the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a new contract from UEC for the supply of eight additional NK-32-02 engines by 2024.