Tu-22M3: News

Am I high right now or is this article saying this bomber flew at hypersonic speeds?

https://tass.com/defense/1160783

"The second prototype of the Tu-22M3M supersonic bomber underwent trials at hypersound speeds during its fourth test flight, a defense industry source told TASS on Wednesday.
"Five flights have already been performed. The hypersound speed was achieved during the fourth flight. The aircraft demonstrated good stability and controllability. Modified systems and equipment are performing normally during the trials," the source said."

Just journalists being retards as usual, ignore it

thegopnik wrote:Am I high right now or is this article saying this bomber flew at hypersonic speeds?

https://tass.com/defense/1160783

"The second prototype of the Tu-22M3M supersonic bomber underwent trials at hypersound speeds during its fourth test flight, a defense industry source told TASS on Wednesday.
"Five flights have already been performed. The hypersound speed was achieved during the fourth flight. The aircraft demonstrated good stability and controllability. Modified systems and equipment are performing normally during the trials," the source said."

Seems that also in the East general press journalists think that subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic are all new realeass of the Arcade game Sonic the Hedgehog.

thegopnik wrote:Am I high right now or is this article saying this bomber flew at hypersonic speeds?

https://tass.com/defense/1160783

"The second prototype of the Tu-22M3M supersonic bomber underwent trials at hypersound speeds during its fourth test flight, a defense industry source told TASS on Wednesday.
"Five flights have already been performed. The hypersound speed was achieved during the fourth flight. The aircraft demonstrated good stability and controllability. Modified systems and equipment are performing normally during the trials," the source said."

The author made a mistake! Should be supersonic. The first flights were subsonic and the fourth supersonic.

Wish I could take photos like this. The lighting is exquisite.

I was still with doubts about the length of the TU-22M3M weapons bay, so I was searching and in one Russian forum I saw a comment about the Zvezda tv documentary about the Tu-22M3M, this one...https://youtu.be/5GbtjgPYxGw in what a member said the weapons bay will be enlarged, I asked some members in this forum that I know understand Russian, this is what Mindstorm translated about the 18:30 seconds in the video...

Mindstorm:

The video say that the Ту-22МЗМ weapon bay with the characteristic silhouette elongation ( personal note :already present in former models but never used to increase the lenght's limits of the missiles nountable) should supposedly allow the bomber to employ missiles with extended range, even those not compatible with the two weapon bays of the Ту-160.

https://youtu.be/d18Omx9gMK0
Some footage of the. M3M flying.
I notice the video always cuts away whenever it gets possible to have a close look at the new bump over the nose, right where you expect a retractable air refuelling probe to be......

Edit: it appears to be shortened clips of the video dino00 posted above from the zvezda documentary.
Can someone translate what is being said at around 4:15 and 17:40 in the video below that dino00 posted concerning the difference in nose profiles here please? I suspect they are talking about what the the new bump is, but do not speak Russian.
https://youtu.be/5GbtjgPYxGw

wilhelm wrote:https://youtu.be/d18Omx9gMK0
Some footage of the. M3M flying.
I notice the video always cuts away whenever it gets possible to have a close look at the new bump over the nose, right where you expect a retractable air refuelling probe to be......

Edit: it appears to be shortened clips of the video dino00 posted above from the zvezda documentary.
Can someone translate what is being said at around 4:15 and 17:40 in the video below that dino00 posted concerning the difference in nose profiles here please? I suspect they are talking about what the the new bump is, but do not speak Russian.
https://youtu.be/5GbtjgPYxGw

Confirmed. They are saying it is the in flight refueling probe.

Thanks.

China to deploy modified TU-22's? :

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Inks-Military-Deal-With-Iran-Under-Secretive-25-Year-Plan.html

George1 wrote:

China hasnt any Tu-22s

how do you know they won't have them in the future?

mnztr wrote:

George1 wrote:

China hasnt any Tu-22s

how do you know they won't have them in the future?

To acquire them it would have to buy to Russia, so WTH Iran wouldn't just buy them directly?

Do you think the news of China starting licence producing Tu-22M3s will be revealed by an oil price website?

And it would take years for China to set up production of Tu-22M3s... how hard do you think Israel and the US would work to prevent China from producing such aircraft and then selling them to Iran?

Iran would at best buy some Tu-22M3 aircraft from Russia, but why would they consider a Chinese upgrade on such an aircraft... China has no experience or knowledge of the Backfire to base any potential upgrades on.

Russia on the other hand has decades of operational experience with the aircraft and has their own upgrade in progress right now...

Unless they were talking about Iran buying Chinese Tu-16s which is a rather different kettle of fish...

But even then if they were looking at bomber aircraft in that category the Tu-22M3 is vastly superior in performance to the Tu-16, so why buy the latter instead of the former?

Neither aircraft would be a huge amount of use to Iran anyway... Su-30s and MiG-29M2s and Su-25SM3s would be valuable buys and perhaps Gefest & T upgrades for their Su-24s, and indeed their new light fighters...

There have been rumors that China was going to license produce the TU-22 for about a decade now. How do you know this has not been an ongoing project for years? As for an oilsite, geopolitics and oil are often intertwined. Also I would expect Russia has quite a few frames in reserve.

You assume TU-22's are available for Iran to buy..why does China persist with the TU-16 vs buying the TU-22?

marcellogo wrote:

mnztr wrote:

George1 wrote:

China hasnt any Tu-22s

how do you know they won't have them in the future?

To acquire them it would have to buy to Russia, so WTH Iran wouldn't just buy them directly?

Who says Iran are going to own them. If they are Chinese or Russian planes sitting on the tarmac of an Iranian Airbase, how do you think the US or Israel would feel about attacking them, as opposed to them being IRAF planes?

There have been rumors that China was going to license produce the TU-22 for about a decade now. How do you know this has not been an ongoing project for years? As for an oilsite, geopolitics and oil are often intertwined. Also I would expect Russia has quite a few frames in reserve.

China wanted to buy some Tu-22M3s in the mid 1990s and Russia said no. Russia said no because China wanted to buy 2.

You assume TU-22's are available for Iran to buy..why does China persist with the TU-16 vs buying the TU-22?

The Soviet Union sold Tu-22s to Iraq. I have never heard any comment before about Iran being interested in such aircraft, and I suspect the people behind this oil website are just stirring some shit up... creating speculations where none actually exist... playing geopolitical games...

AFAIK Iran are not interested in the Backfire, the only reason it has been mentioned is Russian use of the Backfire in the region and potential operational use from Iranian airbases that would allow much heavier payloads be delivered over much shorter distances...

Who says Iran are going to own them. If they are Chinese or Russian planes sitting on the tarmac of an Iranian Airbase, how do you think the US or Israel would feel about attacking them, as opposed to them being IRAF planes?

The suggestion in the article was that the aircraft Russia wants to base in Iran are the same aircraft Iran wants to operate for itself, but made the mistake of suggesting a Chinese upgrade Backfire would be of interest... Anyone who follows aviation would see that as being obvious BS... a bit like Iran also considering a Ford Class carrier with Chinese EMALS and EM weapons fitted...

There is no suggestion iran would be acquiring tu-22s just that they would be based there and that there may be. A chinese modified version. The tu-22 is 10 years older now. Perhaps russia is less protective of the tech as its older and we able to obtain major oil and gas contracts with china in return for the technology. Russian and chinese bases give iran a great deal of security from US threats

It is like suggesting they want and F-35 but they want the Russian upgraded version... there is no Chinese upgraded version of any model Backfire... you can't upgrade something you have never had access to.

It is just silly...

Iran has never given any indication of wanting a Backfire... it is not a question of whether Russia wants to sell it or not... this is just an oil website trying to bait the US and Israel to go apeshit over Iran possibly getting a powerful strike bomber they have never shown any interest in before...

Ignore it.

Iran has rules against allowing foreign countries having military bases on their territory.... and that is understandable considering they have had the US there in the past and they can see around the world the only way to get them out is by force... and they don't want to be put in the same situation with China or Russia doing the same. Perfectly understandable.

Launch of a Kh-32

Hole wrote:


Launch of a Kh-32

Google search is telling me 12 meters in length .92 meter diameter. The kinzhal is 1 meter in diameter, estimated 8 meters in length and more than twice the speed and range of the kh-32. I am just wondering if kinzhal is a way better weapon to always choose than the kh-32.

The figures for range and speed are based on a launch at mach 2+ from a MiG-31 at over 14km altitude.

Kinzhal is a solid rocket fuelled modification of the ground launched Iskander missile. The Kh-32 is a liquid fuelled missile that is developed from the Kh-22M.

Having both in production and service is a good thing and both would be dangerous for enemy shipping.

The Backfire can carry up to three Kh-32s... I am not aware of any that have had Kinzhal compatible launch pylons.

As I see it, the Kinzhal is an AEGIS killer while the heavier Kh-32 will then kill the carrier.