"Tu-16"

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Tu-16 (product "N", according to NATO codification: Badger - "Barsuk") - Soviet heavy twin-engine jet multipurpose aircraft. It was produced in various modifications, including a bomber, a rocket-carrying version, a tanker aircraft, an electronic warfare aircraft and others. It was serially produced from 1953 to 1963 by three aircraft factories.

He was in service with the USSR, Russia and the CIS countries for about 50 years. It was also in service with Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Indonesia. It was produced under the name Xian H-6 in the People's Republic of China. During production, more than one and a half thousand Tu-16 aircraft were manufactured.

Nuclear weapons carrier.

History
The first Soviet post-war long-range carrier of nuclear weapons was the Tu-4, a piston four-engine aircraft - a copy of the American B-29 Superfortress. But already in the second half of the 1940s, it became clear that the future of long-range bomber aviation was for aircraft with turbojet and turboprop engines. This was confirmed by the results of the Korean War, which showed the difficulty of breaking a powerful air defense slow-moving, albeit well-armed, B-29.

In addition, the Soviet Navy needed an aircraft to deter the superior surface forces of the Western navies.

The specification for the creation of an aircraft with a working range of about 3000 km, transonic cruising speed and a bomb load of 3-7 tons was ready in 1948, but the development was held back by the unpreparedness of a suitable engine.

Tupolev Design Bureau at this time is developing a number of experimental models that served as prototypes of the Tu-16. Among them should be mentioned the model "82" - the first Soviet front-line bomber with a sweep wing and two jet engines. The aircraft "82" did not go into production due to the fact that the Il-28 was adopted by the competing design bureau Ilyushin. However, developments were used in the design of the front-line bomber Tu-22. The immediate predecessor of the Tu-16 was the project "86", the development of which began in late 1948, completed by the summer of 1949. The project assumed a flight range with 2 tons of bombs up to 4000 km, a maximum speed at an altitude of 6000 m - 980 km / h, a practical ceiling - 13400 m.

On August 29, 1949, the USSR tested the RDS-1 nuclear bomb and began preparations for serial production of the RDS-3 bomb. New long-range bombers had to deliver to the target this product, the weight of which exceeded 5 tons. In addition, the nuclear munition required a thermostatized bomb bay and measures of protection against the impact of damaging factors of nuclear weapons on the crew and aircraft. A bomber was required to deliver a nuclear bomb at a range available to the Tu-4 but capable of flying twice as fast as it. Research Tupolev Design Bureau on the project "86" showed that the high-speed long-range rocket carrier of nuclear weapons can be obtained by increasing the mass and size, with an increase in the thrust of engines by 1.5-2 times. Thus, the project "88" with the location of more powerful engines was started