The two Tu-160 bombers that made visits to Venezuela and Nicaragua last week returned to the Engels base in the early morning of November 5, 2013. The bombers took off from the Maiquetia airport in Venezuela and landed in Engels about 15 hours later. During the flight, they conducted refueling over the Norwegian Sea.
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Two questions:
First, do we know if the Tu-160 bomber "Mikhail Gromov" is operational?
Secondly, do we know the “name” of #18, tail number 94115? Thanks.
Frank Shuler
USA
Mikhail Gromov crashed on 18 September 2003. As for No. 18, I have nothing on it, not even the tail number. RF-94115 is No. 08/Vitaliy Kopylov.
I have two records of #18, 18Red and 18Grey
18Red was last seen at Engels August 2005, no name, construction number or RF number
18Grey was the OKB prototype, construction number 70-01
I have no records for an aircraft named Mikhail Gromov though. Pavel, do you have a tail number available for the record?
Tony
I have Red #1 nose number, tail number unknown, for “Mikhail Gromov” that I now realized crashed on 18 September 2003.
Thanks for the update on RF-94115, No. 08/Vitaliy Kopylov.
Number 18 is a mystery.
The following list has the last year the bomber has flown or "no" for aircraft no longer flyable. (I think)
Inventory of Russian Tu-160 Blackjack Bombers:
as of October 13, 2013
Red 01
Mikhail Gromov
No
Red 02
RF-94102
Vasiliy Reshetnikov
2011
Red 03
RF-94101
Pavel Taran
2012
Red 04
RF-94112
Ivan Yarygin
No
Red 05
RF-94104
Aleksandr Golovanov
2013
Red 06
RF-94105
Ilya Muromets
2012
Red 07
Aleksandr Molodchiy
No
Red 08
RF-94115
Vitaly Kopylov
2013
Red 10
RF-94100
Nikolai Kuznetsov
2011
Red 11
RF-94114
Vasily Senko
2011
Red 12
RF-94109
Alexander Novikov
2013
Red 14
RF-94103
Igor Sikorski
No
Red 15
Vladimir Sudets
No
Red 16
Alexey Plokhov
2012
Red 17
RF-94110
Valery Chkalov
2013
Red 18
Unknown
No
Red 19
RF-94113
Valentin Bliznuk
2013
Tu-160 (The "White Swan")
Please correct any errors.
Thanks!
Frank Shuler
USA
Hi Frank,
Yep, when I looked at the database this morning after a sleep, not at 1 am with jetlag, I saw that I had Red01 as Mikhail Gromov, so thanks for confirming
I have the following that may fill some gaps for you:
Red07 is RF-94106
Red16 is RF-94107
Neither have been seen by me so I can't 100% confirm but it comes from reliable sources
Cheers
Tony
Red 14/94103 is here - http://bmpd.livejournal.com/382045.html . It's hard to say if it can fly.
Red 18 is indeed a mystery. Is there a photo of it in Engels in 2005?
Gentlemen:
Thanks all for the information. If we ever "tag" #18 please let me know. The "White Swan", quite an airplane!
Frank Shuler
USA
I couldn't get that link to Red14 to work Pavel, but here's another one from July 2012:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia---Air/Tupolev-Tu-160/2153004/L/
The text says it has returned from an upgrade.
The database I use has a last seen date of August 2012 at Engels
It's interesting that a photo with Red 14 was removed from the original story. It is, however, still in the bmpd journal - there was an error in the link. Here is the correct one - it's very much the same photo with Igor Sikorsky painted on the plane.
Thanks Pavel. Hopefully it would be in an airworthy state if they went to the effort of adding a name in that time
It is also parked up at the end of the active flightline.
I'm putting it down as active
I wouldn't say it looks like an active plane, but you never know...