The TU-95 Bear Lives On

[Heathrow Harry]

Originally Posted by Rhino power

Nice joined up thinking there...
Allow a Russian engine manufacturer to get in on the latest engine technology we have, or are/were developing!
Got any more brilliant ideas?

-RP

Our "latest technology" .... which doesn't work very well..................... IIRC Boeing talked to the Russians about technology for working titanium for the 747 u/c - and the Russians were given some access to how to hang jet engines off the wing in pods... it's not always a zero sum game

[Rhino power]

Originally Posted by Heathrow Harry

...IIRC Boeing talked to the Russians about technology for working titanium for the 747 u/c - and the Russians were given some access to how to hang jet engines off the wing in pods... it's not always a zero sum game

Nice try, but, advanced engine technology and fiddling about with landing gear and engine pods aren't even remotely in the same ball park...

-RP

[megan]

Boeing talked to the Russians about technology for working titanium

I very much doubt that, Lockheed developed the technology for building the A-12/SR-71 (out of Russian supplied titanium).

[ORAC]

I wouldn’t doubt it. Firstly, why would Lockheed share any proprietary information with Boeing? Secondly a third of Boeng’s undercarriage forgings are made out of titanium by a joint Boeing-Avisma company called Ural Boeing Manufacturing in Russia - and they have a research lab employing around 1400 engineers researching new titanium alloys and aircraft parts.

[Kerosene Kraut]

Quiet, behind the scenes, trades have happened in the aviation industry before, even between competitors. So it sounds at least possible.

[KenV]

Originally Posted by TEEEJ

Tu-95MS Bear H production ceased in 1992.
Page 29. http://www.oldwings.nl/st/cn_explanation_location.pdf

Thanks for the link to that website. Lotsa interesting factoids there. And according to that website production of the last Tu-142 (the Russian Navy's maritime version of the Bear and bearing NATO designation Bear F/J) was in 1994. So those airframes are "only" 24 years old.
From that website: About 80 Tu-142Ms built by TMZ (factory # 86) at Taganrog-Yuzhny from 1975 to 1994.

[KenV]

Originally Posted by megan

I very much doubt that, Lockheed developed the technology for building the A-12/SR-71 (out of Russian supplied titanium).

Lockheed developed ways to bend, stamp, and drill/machine titanium sheet and plate for the A-12/SR-71. The Boeing stuff are heavy titanium forgings, very very different and Boeing had a Russian industrial partner, AVISMA, for their titanium parts. To this day AVISMA remains the worlds #1 producer of raw titanium and titanium parts which they sell worldwide, including to Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed, NASA, etc, etc.

[KenV]

Originally Posted by Heathrow Harry

" It's hard to say how much longer those turboprops will remain supportable " I guess - if it's an important enough weapons system they'll pay whatever it takes - until someone can sell them the idea of something newer I guess.............

At some point "whatever it takes" to keep the engines going would likely make it cheaper to just replace the Bears with an entirely new platform. Will that be before or after the last BUFF with biz-jet engines gets retired/replaced? Who knows?

[TEEEJ]

Originally Posted by KenV

Thanks for the link to that website. Lotsa interesting factoids there.

No problem, Ken. I agree it is very detailed.

[1771 DELETE]

The Bear was fast, catching one at low level, there was another at high level trying to deceive us. We had the beam window open for photographs as he put on the power, we kept up as far as 10000ft, where we had to shut the window and give up the chase,

[tonytales]

It seems Douglas was using titanium very early on. Interesting paper dated September 1957 on its use on the X-3 Stilletto but more importantly on the DC-7. The DC-7C nacelle and firewalls was skinned with titanium, in fact over 800 lbs of the material were used on the aircraft. Article details considerable fabrication problems.
https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightP...20-%201385.PDF