The Tupolev Tu-143 ''Reys'' (Flight or Trip, russian: Рейс) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

unmanned An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a vehicle without a person on board. Uncrewed vehicles can either be under telerobotic control—remote controlled or remote guided vehicles—or they can be autonomously controlled—autonomous vehicl ...

reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...

in service with the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

and a number of its

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

and Middle East allies during the late 1970s and 1980s. It contained a reconnaissance pod that was retrieved after flight, and from which imagery was retrieved.

History

Development

The Tu-143 was introduced in 1976 and strongly resembled the

Tu-141 The Tupolev Tu-141 Strizh ("Swift"; russian: Туполев Ту-141 Стриж) is a Soviet reconnaissance drone that served with the Soviet Army during the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2014. Development ...

, but was substantially scaled-down. It was a short-range (60–70 kilometer) tactical reconnaissance system and had low-level flight capability. The Tu-143 was truck-launched with

JATO JATO (acronym for jet-assisted take-off) is a type of assisted take-off for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets. The term ''JATO'' is used interchangeably with the (more specific ...

boosting, recovered by parachute, and powered by a TR3-117 turbojet with 5.8 kN (590 kgf, 1300 lbf) thrust. The initial version carried film cameras, but later versions carried a TV or radiation detection payload, with data relayed to a ground station over a datalink. Some 950 units were produced in the 1970s and 1980s.

Operation history

The Tu-143 was used by

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

in reconnaissance missions over

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

during the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...

, as well as by Soviet forces in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

. During the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

, Ukraine appeared to use them to spot Russian air defences and as ersatz cruise missile. On 29 June 2022, one Tu-143 carrying explosives was shot down in Kursk Oblast.

M-143 variant

A target drone version, the M-143, was introduced in the mid-1980s.

Tu-243 variant

The Tu-143 was followed into service in the late 1990s by the similar but improved "Tu-243 Reys-D", with a 25 cm (10 inch) fuselage stretch, to provide greater fuel capacity and about twice the range; it had an uprated TR3-117 engine with 6.28 kN (640 kgf, 1,410 lbf) thrust; and improved low-altitude guidance.

Tu-300 variant

Since 1995, Tupolev began promoting the further refined "Tu-300 Korshun", which resembles its predecessors but is fitted with a nose antenna dome and nose fairings for modern sensors and electronic systems. It also features a centerline pylon for a sensor pod or munitions. Financial issues forced a halt to development at the end of the 1990s, but work was resumed in 2007.

Operators

Current operators

; :

Korean People's Air Force The Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force (KPAAF; ; Hanja: 朝鮮人民軍航空 및 反航空軍 ) is the unified military aviation force of North Korea. It is the second largest branch of the Korean People's Army comprising an estimated ...

; *(in service as of 2016 as targets). ; ; ;

Former operators

; : retired ; : VR-3 Rejs, retired in 1995 ; : VR-3 was in service from 1985, passed to Czech Republic and Slovakia ; ; : VR-3 in service from 1987 until the early 2000s ; : VR-3 Rejs, retired ; : Passed to Russia and Ukraine on dissolution of the USSR

Specifications

Tupolev TU-143 Reys: *wingspan 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in) *length 8.06 m (26 ft 5 in) *height 1.54 m (5 ft 1 in) *launch weight 1,230 kg (2,710 lb) *maximum speed 950 km/h (515 kn, 590 mph) *engine Klimov turbojet TR3-117 *service ceiling 5,000 m (16,400 ft) *range 200 km (110 nmi, 125 mi)

References

This article contains material that originally came from the web articl
''Unmanned Aerial Vehicles''
by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.

External links

with transport vehicle and launcher {{Tupolev aircraft Tu-0143 Unmanned aerial vehicles of the Soviet Union Unmanned military aircraft of Russia