The Kazan Aviation Plant of Russia delivered 4 Tu-160M strategic bomber aircraft nicknamed "White Swan" to the Russian Aerospace Forces and is preparing for the start of mass production this year.
The aircraft is powered by NK-32-02 engines, which require less maintenance while providing superior flight performance and endurance. The Tu-160M also carries a variety of new **, most prominently including the Kh-101 102 cruise missile.
The Tu-160 has two bomb bays, each capable of carrying 20,000 kg of free-fall bombs (in the case of traditional 250 kg bombs, the Tu-160 can carry 176 FAB-250 bombs, four times more than the B-29 Superfortress bomber, 46 more than the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, and 17 more than the B-1 Lancer strategic bomber) or launch nuclear missiles in a rolling bomb bay.
If the B-1B were willing to sacrifice handling and stealth performance and plug-ins**, the B-1B could have a payload of up to 6,100 kg, but the Tu-160 would still carry 39 more bombs than the B-1B (the Tu-160 could carry up to 45,000 kg).
Therefore, the largest heavy bomber throne in the world is none other than the Tu-160.
The modernized and upgraded version of the Tu-160 Tu-160M2, replaced with new avionics and ** systems, is capable of carrying conventional **, for example: 90 OFAB-500U (weighing about 500 kg and having a continuous ** radius of up to 70-100 m ).
On the 21st, Putin personally went to the Kazan Aircraft Plant to inspect the modernized Tu-160M strategic missile bombers and greet the delivery of 4 of them.
He inspected the assembly line information desk of the Kazan Aviation Plant and inspected three Tu-160M strategic missile bombers that were undergoing overhaul. Putin climbed into the cockpit of one of the planes and sat on the steering wheel.
The delivery of these four strategic bombers will once again raise the long-range bombing capabilities of the Russian army by one level, because according to open data, there are only 160 Tu-16 bombers in service.
Due to a shortage of upstream components, the modernized version of the aircraft has been built and delivered in very few quantities, often with only one or two units per year. After the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian aviation industry seems to have opened up the second pulse of Rendu, this time paying 4 at a time, and mass production of the model from 24 years, the speed of improvement in its production capacity is jaw-dropping.