In glorious Mother Russia, we do not need to build another plane for close ground support. We install 88 PPSh-41 submachine guns in a bomber and we kill the Nazi scum! We call it Fire Hedgehog!
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Known as the Tupolev 007, the bizarre craft you see above is the only one known to be in the US. The actual craft, the Tupolev A-3 Hope, was fairly prevalent throughout Eastern Europe and Siberia starting in 1964.
During the Cold War, America’s air defense network could count on a few things. First, that they would see Soviet aircraft flying on the very edge of our airspace. Second, those aircraft would be the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear or one of its variants. Once the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, these flybys started to dwindle. In fact, by 2009 the US was considering an incursion by Russian aircraft something strange; not routine. However, as Russia seeks to re-enter the superpower club, it has been doing a little saber rattling lately. Over the last few years, the US and Europe have been reporting more and more incursions of Russian aircraft over our northern borders. That aircraft is the same as its ever been, the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear. This is the only decent image I can find; if you find more, share them with us! They tell us Supersonic Transport is dead. Well, perhaps not quite. Tupolev, not completely discouraged by the dismal performance of its famous Tu-144 Supersonic Transport (also known as the “Concordski”), is apparently now working on a [...]
“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” That’s what Rodney King said, and the Russian space agency and NASA took it to heart. Continue reading A Soviet SST In King Langley’s Court  Hmmmm...that looks familiar The Soviets had a long history of producing aircraft and spacecraft that looked shockingly similar to their western counterpart. Often times, this lead to accusations of espionage. Sometimes, the espionage charge was a little harsh. For instance, the Buran looked similar to NASA’s Space Shuttle mostly due to the fact that aerodynamics doesn’t change. Soviet aerospace engineers may have looked at pictures of the space shuttle, but no known actual information leaked. Continue reading Anything You Can Do, I Can Steal Better No rhinoplasty required. It was suggested last week that we should run with a theme of Supersonic Transports this week, or SST’s. We liked the idea, and there’s a huge wealth of topics to discuss, so we decided to run with it. And what’s one of the first things that come to mind [...]
Did the mysterious exploding atomic toaster in space give you the willies (and make you look cross-wise at your nearest lemur)? Well grab your lead vest and a dosimeter – the damn Commies put a nuclear reactor into a Tupolev bomber back in the swinging ’60s! Turn out the lights and put a flashlight under your monitor’s chin and read on for this chilling tale of Cold War insanity. Continue reading Khrushchev’s Nuclear-Powered Tupolev – Commie Radiation from Above! |
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