The deeply modernized Tu-160 strategic bomber of the new construction will make its first flight at the beginning of next year. Earlier, a car equipped with improved NK-32-02 engines took to the sky.
The long-awaited first flight of the new-built Tu-160M strategic bomber will not take place until the end of the year. This was reported by TASS with reference to Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov. "The first flight of the new Tu-160 is planned, hopefully, at the beginning of next year. <...> Let him run on the new NK-32 at least," the agency quotes the official as saying.
Earlier, the business resource "Business Online" published material in which it was claimed that the car would be lifted into the sky on December 18. A TASS source in the aircraft industry also reported that the plane will make its first run on the runway in December.
The Russian Defense Ministry and Tupolev signed an agreement on the construction of ten new strategic bombers until 2027 in 2018. The cost of the contract was 160 billion rubles.
The modernization of the Tu-160 has a long and very difficult history. Back in February last year, the deeply modernized Tu-160M, which was created on the basis of a combat vehicle, first rose into the sky.
The first prototype of the upgraded Tu-160M strategic bomber
Image Source: BUSINESS Online
Even earlier, in 2018, a bomber built from the Soviet reserve took off for the first time. "Only a small modernization was carried out on the aircraft, the airframe and engines remained the same," a TASS source in the military—industrial complex said at the time.
About a year ago, the modernization program passed another important stage: then, for the first time, the Tu-160, equipped with new NK-32-02 engines, took to the sky. The tests were successful.
One of the four first manufactured NK-32 series 02 engines of the installation batch
Image source: Sergey Mamontov/RIA Novosti
The Tu-160 performed its very first flight on December 18, 1981, and began operating the car in 1987. One of the main features of the aircraft were wings with variable geometry.
Now the Tu-160 is the fastest strategic bomber in the world. Its maximum speed is 2,200 kilometers per hour. Cruising speed is 850 kilometers per hour. The aircraft has a practical range without refueling of 12.3 thousand kilometers. Its armament includes, in particular, the new long-range cruise missile X-101. It is known that the bomber used these weapons against targets in Syria.
For all its advantages, the Tu-160 (and its upgraded version) has a significant drawback associated with the lack of stealth technology. Russia wants to implement it on a fundamentally new combat aircraft, which is being created under the PAK DA program. The first prototype of the engine has already been manufactured for it, the car can rise into the air around 2025.
