#tupolev

The little hallway to reach the navigator’s position, located in between the pilot seats of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-134 regional airliner.

Intercepting the Bear

A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A-100-GR Tomcat aircraft from Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51) as it intercepts a Soviet Naval Aviation Tu-95RTs "Bear D". - 15 October 1979

Soviet pilots, ground crew, and an American serviceman (center) in front of a Soviet Pe-2 dive bomber near Poltava in June 1944. The American is Technical Sergeant Bernard J. McGuire of Tonawanda, New York, 348th Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group. June 1944.

Grumman F-14A Tomcat, US Navy, VF-1 Wolfpack, Western Pacific / Indian Ocean, 1984, Official USN photograph (VIRIN: DN-ST-87-09070)

A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat of Fighter Squadron VF-1 "Wolfpack" escorting two Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 aircraft (NATO reporting "Badger"). VF-1 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 2 (CVW-2) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) for a deployment to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean from 13 January to 1 August 1984. This totally bodacious Wolfpack Tomcat delivers classic Cold War escort action against a pair of Soviet Badgers!

Truly such a beautiful plane 🪽❤️‍🩹

airsLLide no. 21997: CCCP-76470, Tupolev 114B, Aeroflot, Moscow-Vnukovo, August 2, 2002

Lost and Forgotten: In the rearmost corner of Moscow-Vnukovo's Aircraft Repair Plant Number 400, behind a row of old hangars made of bricks and steel sat a lone survivor of Aeroflot's 1950s long-range giants, the Tupolev 144, the fastest propeller driven airliner ever built.

While in service from 1960 onwards, she was capable of carrying up to 220 passengers over a distance of 10'900 kilometres or 6'800 miles at a totally jet-like maximum speed of 885kph or 550 mph (although regular cruising speed was «only» 870kph or 540mph - not that it mattered much...

Her swept wings and her counter-rotating propellers measuring 6.2 metres or 20ft in diameter were mounted on four Kutznetsov NK12-MV turboprop engines, the strongest of her kind ever. Based off the Tupolev 95 «Bear» strategic bomber with whome the Tupolev 114 shared the wing design, only 32 units of her kind were ever built, and despite the outstanding performance, the type became obsolete quickly with the dawn of the jet-age in the USSR that coincided with the Tupolev 114's debut.

During her service period, CCCP-76470 was one of four Tupolev 114s operated jointly by Aeroflot and Japan Airlines on the Tokyo-Haneda - Moscow-Sheremetjevo - Paris-Le Bourget route, a service offered between 1965 and 1969. For this purpose, the aircraft was reconfigured with a spacious cabin featuring 105 seats in first class and economy class (then tourist class). After that glorious intermezzo, 76470 was reconfigured back to her 220 single class cabin and used on domestic flights within the USSR until her retirement in 1976.