The Tupolev Tu-14 (
NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...
: Bosun)
(
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
/
DOD reporting name: Type 35),
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, ...
twinjet
A twinjet or twin-engine jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines. A twinjet is able to fly well enough to land with a single working engine, making it safer than a single-engine aircraft in the event of failure of an engine. Fuel efficien ...
light bomber
A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance.
The earliest light bombers were intended to dro ...
derived from the Tupolev Tu-73, the failed competitor to the
Ilyushin Il-28 'Beagle'. It was used as a
torpedo bomber
A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carrying the weight ...
by the mine-torpedo regiments of
Soviet Naval Aviation
Soviet Naval Aviation (AV-MF, for ''Авиация военно-морского флота'' in Russian, or ''Aviatsiya voyenno-morskogo flota'', literally "aviation of the military maritime fleet") was the naval aviation arm of the Soviet Nav ...
between 1952–59 and exported to the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
Development
The Tu-14 had its origin in the three-engined '73' design which used a pair of
Rolls-Royce Nene
The Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine. The Nene was a complete redesign, rather than a scaled-up Rolls-Royce Derwent"Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" Bill Gunston, Patrick Stephens Limited 1989, , p.111 w ...
turbojets under the wings and a single
Rolls-Royce Derwent V in the tail, in an installation much like that of the central engine of a
Boeing 727
The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
After the heavy 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airpo ...
. The availability of the
Klimov VK-1
The Klimov VK-1 was the first Soviet jet engine to see significant production. It was developed by and first produced by the GAZ 116 works. Derived from the Rolls-Royce Nene, the engine was also built under licence in China as the Wopen WP-5.
...
, a more-powerful version of the Nene, allowed the RD-500 to be deleted from the preliminary design, which was given the internal designation of "81". The other major change was the addition of a PSBN navigation
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
which required a fifth crewmember to operate. This was rejected by the
VVS and
Tupolev
Tupolev (russian: Ту́полев, ), officially Joint Stock Company Tupolev, is a Russian aerospace and defence company headquartered in Basmanny District, Moscow.
Tupolev is successor to the Soviet Tupolev Design Bureau (OKB-156, design off ...
reworked the design to eliminate the dorsal and ventral turrets and reduce the crew to only three, the pilot, a bombardier-navigator, and a tail gunner. It retained the two fixed
Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23
The Nudelman-Richter NR-23 is a Soviet autocannon widely used in military aircraft of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. It was designed by A. E. Nudelman and A. A. Richter to replace the wartime Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 and Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23, ...
cannon in the fuselage nose, but the design of the fuselage was changed to give the gunner his own separate pressurized compartment and a KDU-81 tail turret armed with another pair of NR-23 guns.
Construction of the prototype began in August 1949, using components from the canceled Tu-73S prototypes, and was completed in October. The manufacturer's tests were conducted between 13 October 1949 and 21 January 1950. Its State acceptance trials lasted from 23 January to 27 May 1950 and it was accepted for production, provided that the problems with the KDU-81 turret were resolved and that
ejection seats
In aircraft, an ejection seat or ejector seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft (usually military) in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an explosive charge or rocke ...
were provided for the pilot and gunner, a
hot air
''Hot Air'' is a conservative American political blog. It is written by the pseudonymous Allahpundit, Ed Morrissey, John Sexton, and Jazz Shaw.
Hot Air was founded by Michelle Malkin, a conservative author and blogger, in 2006, taking over ''h ...
deicing
Deicing is the process of removing snow, ice or frost from a surface. Anti-icing is the application of chemicals that not only deice but also remain on a surface and continue to delay the reformation of ice for a certain period of time, or preve ...
was to be fitted and the gun mount in the nose revised. The first five preproduction aircraft did not incorporate these changes as they were built using Tu-73S components, after the factory in
Irkutsk
Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...
had prematurely begun production of that bomber. One of these was sent to
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
where it was evaluated by
Soviet Naval Aviation
Soviet Naval Aviation (AV-MF, for ''Авиация военно-морского флота'' in Russian, or ''Aviatsiya voyenno-morskogo flota'', literally "aviation of the military maritime fleet") was the naval aviation arm of the Soviet Nav ...
for use as a torpedo bomber. The sixth aircraft did incorporate all these changes as well as the navigator's ejection seat requested by Naval Aviation, and it was evaluated in May 1951. It was recommended for production as the Tu-14T and entered service in 1952 with Naval Aviation.
[
About 150 were produced and served with the mine-torpedo regiments of Naval Aviation until 1959. It was given the ]NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...
Bosun. After it was withdrawn from service, several were used for various test programs, including one evaluating ramjet engines.[Gordon & Rigamant, p. 128] Up to 50 used Tu-14Ts were delivered to the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force
The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the Peo ...
although quantities and dates cannot be confirmed.
The second preproduction Tu-14 was converted into a day or night photographic reconnaissance aircraft with the OKB
OKB is a transliteration of the Russian initials of "" – , meaning 'experiment and design bureau'. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, usually for military applications. ...
designation of "89". The conversion was fairly minor and involved an unpressurized central cabin that housed two automatic pivoting cameras, two fuel tanks and another camera fitted in the bomb bay
The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over th ...
and another camera for oblique photography was mounted in the aircraft's tail for the daylight photography role. All cameras and their viewports were electrically heated to prevent misting and icing at altitude. For night photography, the fuel tanks and camera in the bomb bay were removed and a variety of flare bombs were carried to illuminate the targets. In addition, the screen of the PSBN-M navigation radar could be photographed by a special camera and both the pilot and navigator could record their own observations using a voice recorder.[ However, the VVS had already decided to use the Il-28R reconnaissance version of the standard Il-28 by the time that the "89" first flew on 23 March 1951 and Tupolev decided not to submit it for State acceptance trials.][Gordon & Rigamant, p. 129]
Variants
*Tu-14 – Light bomber version (not accepted for service).
*Tu-14R – Reconnaissance
In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities.
Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
version (prototype only). Also known as Tu-89.
*Tu-14T – Torpedo bomber version.
*'81' - OKB designation of the Tu-14 2 × VK-1 prototype
*'93' – OKB designation of the proposed derivative of the Tu-14T with VK-5 or VK-7 engines; not built.[Duffy & Kandalov, p. 202]
Operators
;
*Soviet Naval Aviation
Soviet Naval Aviation (AV-MF, for ''Авиация военно-морского флота'' in Russian, or ''Aviatsiya voyenno-morskogo flota'', literally "aviation of the military maritime fleet") was the naval aviation arm of the Soviet Nav ...
;
*People's Liberation Army Air Force
The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular armed forces of the Peo ...
Specifications (Tu-14 / '89T')
See also
* English Electric Canberra
The English Electric Canberra is a British first-generation, jet-powered medium bomber. It was developed by English Electric during the mid- to late 1940s in response to a 1944 Air Ministry requirement for a successor to the wartime de Havil ...
* Ilyushin Il-28
The Ilyushin Il-28 (russian: Илью́шин Ил-28; NATO reporting name: Beagle) is a jet aircraft, jet bomber of the immediate postwar period that was originally manufactured for the Soviet Air Forces. It was the Soviet Union's first such ai ...
* Tupolev Tu-12
References
Bibliography
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{{Tupolev aircraft
Tu-0014
1940s Soviet bomber aircraft
Twinjets
High-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1949