The Tupolev Tu-4 'Bull' was a long-range, strategic bomber in service with the Soviet Air Force during the Cold War. Based on the B-29 Superfortress, it was a conventional, WW2-type aircraft, which was powered by four piston engines. It was the first Soviet bomber to carry a nuclear bomb. Although it could fly a long distance, its range was not long enough to reach the western or the eastern USA's coast in one flight without refueling, and in those days air-refueling was very complicated. It could only reach Alaska taking off from eastern Siberia.
The story of the Tupolev Tu-4 is without parallel in military aviation, because it is the story of how three American B-29 bombers were totally dismantled and dissected to the most minute detail, to the extent of analyzing all the materials that had been used for its construction. This painstaking work was done by Soviet Army officers and engineers in 1945. Then, to make the first prototype, the American aircraft was copied in a form that would be put into series production in the Soviet Union. Flown by American pilots, these three B-29s had performed an emergency landing at a Vladivostok air base in 1944 because they had run out of fuel after flying a bombing sortie over Japan. Vladivostok is on the eastern coast of Russia on the Sea of Japan.
The dismantling, copying, and manufacturing of the first "Bull" was the first and greatest example of what today is called 'reversed engineering'. The prototype of the Tu-4, the B-4, first took to the air on May 19, 1947, flown by Soviet pilot N. S. Rybko. The only original, 100% Soviet design of this aircraft were the four Shvetsov ASh-71 piston engines. Each one of them could deliver 1,700 horsepower, using eighteen cylinders. Later, it would be upgraded with four new ASh-73TK engines. With 910 bombers built, the production of the Bull stopped in 1951, with a reconnaissance, transport, an early warning, and a fuel tanker version of the bomber also being produced.
Specifications
Type: long-range strategic bomber
Length: 30.18 m (99 feet)
Wing Span: 43 m (141 feet, 3 inches)
Wing Area: 161.70 m2 (1,741 square feet)
Height: 8.95 m (29 feet, 4 inches)
Power Plant: four Shvetsov ASh-73TK piston engines.
Maximum Speed: 558 km/h (347 mph)
Range: 5,100 km (3,169 miles)
Service Ceiling: 11,200 m (36,745 feet)
Armament: 8,000-kg (17,637-lb) of bombs; ten 23-mm NS-23 cannons set up in turret on different parts of fuselage.
Below, the Tu-4 in 1949 at a military airbase. The Cold War had already begun.
The early warning variant of the Bull on exhibition on a Russian open museum.
Below, a picture of the Bull taken around 1950, with its crew standing in front.
The Tupolev Tu-4 in flight on air refueling trials around 1949.
