©PJSC "UAC"
The upgrade of the Tu-160M strategic missile-carrying bomber will enable it to carry new weapons, including advanced armaments, Russia’s state corporation Rostec said on Friday, following a trip by its Director General Sergey Chemezov to the Gorbunov Aviation Plant in Kazan.
"The company produces upgraded Tu-160M strategic missile-carrying bombers. The decision to resume their production was made by the president of Russia. Upgraded planes have expanded combat capabilities and considerable potential. Further development of the platform will enable it to use new types of weapons, including advanced weapons," the company said in a statement.
Chemezov said, according to the statement, that the plant is ratcheting up the production of these aircraft. "The company is increasing production of the famous white swans, which are the signature piece of our strategic aviation. They are unique machines, beautiful on the outside and formidable in terms of their capabilities," the Rostec chief was quoted as saying in the statement.
He said the company is also ramping production of the civilian Tu-214 airplane to the tune of 10 per year.
The program to resume the production of Tu-160 planes, upgraded as Tu-160M, was set in motion by the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As part of the program and under a contract between the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry and the Tupolev design bureau, the design documentation for the Tu-160M has been digitalized in short order, the technology of vacuum welding for titanium parts has been restored, production of the plane’s airframe has been resumed, and cooperation has been established among advanced companies in the areas of steel production, aviation and machine building, most of which are part of the Rostec corporation.
The Tu-160 is the largest and most powerful supersonic aircraft in the history of military aviation with variable wing geometry. Earlier, TASS reported that a second newly-built strategic bomber had been sent to a flight test station, and a third such plane is now under construction.
The Tupolev Tu-160 is a supersonic strategic missile-carrier with a variable sweep wing. The decision to resume the production of the upgraded version of the Tu-160, the Tu-160M, was made in 2015.
As a consequence, two existing Tu-160s were upgraded to the Tu-160M standard under a contract with the Ministry of Defense. Overall, 15 airframes should be upgraded. The aircraft that first flew on Jan. 12, 2022 is the first newly build airframe under a contract with the Ministry of Industry and Trade out of ten advanced Tu-160M2 aircraft which will be produced for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
The new Tu-160M2 version, includes a glass cockpit, weapons upgrades, new engines and the removal of obsolete equipment no longer relevant to the Tu-160’s mission. According to the CEO of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) Yury Slyusar, the new aircraft has 80% of its systems and equipment upgraded. The original Tupolev Tu-160 “Blackjack” first flew in 1981 and entered service in 1987.
The first flight of the first deeply modified Tu-160 (designated Tu-160M2), built from backlog airframe took place on Feb. 2, 2020 and lasted 2 hours and 34 minutes.
The Tu-160M is an upgraded variant of the Tu-160 bomber. It is the backbone of the Russian Aerospace Force’s long-range aircraft, along with Tu-95MS bombers. The VKS has used these bombers in the ongoing conflict to strike targets deep inside Ukraine.
The Tu-160 entered service in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and remained in production until 1995.
To improve the strategic bomber capabilities of the VKS at a time of rising tension with the West and to make up for delays in the PAK-DA bomber program, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the manufacturing of Tu-160M in 2015.
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