Tu-95МС

strategic missile carrier

information

ABOUT THE PLANE

Development:

Tupolev Experimental Design Bureau

Production

Taganrog aviation factory,

Samara aviation factory

First flight:

1952

Project stage:

modernization

Tu-95МС strategic missile carrier (NATO codification: Bear) was developed as a carrier of long-range strategic air-launched cruise missiles. The aircraft is a modified version of Tu-95. It is the world’s fastest production turboprop missile carrier aircraft; one of the components of the nuclear triad.

Design features

An all-metal midwing monoplane with arrow wing and single-fin tail. The aerodynamic design provides high aerodynamic efficiency at high flight speeds. Aircraft performance improvement is also achieved by high wing aspect ratio, appropriate selection of a sweep angle and a set of airfoils along the wingspan. The power plant of Tu-95MC consists of four turboprop engines НК-12MП with coaxial four-blade propellers АВ-60К. Fuel on the aircraft is placed in eight hermetically sealed compartments (integral tanks) of the wing and in three bladder tanks in the center section and rear fuselage. There is single-point refueling. The aircraft has an in-flight refueling probe.

Creation history

60 world aviation records

set by Air Force pilots in 1989

flight altitude with load and without load
closed-course flight speed
nonstop flight endurance/time

Tu-95МС was put into mass production in 1981 as a modification of Tu-95 strategic bomber, which had been in operational service with the Russian Air Force since 1957.

Tu-95 aircraft of various modifications were in operational service until the early 1990s; they underwent quite a number of major modification and modernization works for engines, weapon structure and equipment. In the 1970s-1980s, Тu-95К-22 missile carriers carrying Х-22Н missiles were created on the basis of mass-produced Тu-95КМ. In the late 1960s, in-depth modernization of Tu-95РЦ resulted in Tu-142 long-range antisubmarine aircraft; later on, based on its Tu-142M modification, Tu-95MC strategic missile carrier aircraft carrying long-range cruise missiles was created.

Within the framework of a large-scale modernization program for aircraft systems of strategic and long-range aviation, Tupolev PJSC is currently addressing tasks of increasing the operational effectiveness and extending the operational lifetime of Tu-95MC strategic bomber in the interests of the Ministry of Defense of Russia.