Soviet Heavy Bomber ?

Split from 'German Four Engined Bombers'

Hitler´s Air Force One, after all. :roll:

I remember reading somewhere that the Soviets had a high altitude bomber/transporter already before WW2, used among others to carry Molotov ABOVE German airspace for meetings with the British. I don´t remember its designation but I do remember that the British were astounded hearing about his route. The book said it had some kind of charger inside the fuselage to avoid low temperature.
Does anybody here know what plane it was and why it could fly so high?

 

I´m pretty sure the aircraft is the ANT-42/TB-7/Pe-8 ( the aircraft´s designation changed twice during it´s career ). It was used to carry Molotov to Britain in April 1942 ( the correct designation at the time should be TB-7, if I´m not mistaken ).

The reason it could fly at a relatively high altitude ( it´s service ceiling was lower than that of the B-17 ) was because it had an isolated auxilliary engine coupled to a supercharger which fed the four main engines with compressed air in flight.¹
This is probably the charger you´re thinking of.

¹'Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War', Yefim Gordon/Dmitri Khazanov

 

Pe-8 was also used to bomb Berlin together with Il-4 and Yer-2.

 

Thanks, now I remember. It was called Pe-8 in the book and it was not a particularly new design, AFAIR. Thank you both. Btw., as far as you remember, has anybody used this kind of arrangement before or after, or was it supplanted by something smarter (I´m talking of propeller aircraft)?

 

I have now read the whole article, and it seems as only the two prototypes, and perhaps four of the earliest production examples received the auxilliary engine driven supercharger. All subsequent production aircraft were delivered without it and the service ceiling dropped accordingly. It still had quite decent performance compared to other heavy bombers of the same generation though, and could carry a much heavier bombload than the B-17, had better defensive armament than most other bombers and an operative range which could be compared to the B-29.

 

Skua even some of the recieved diesel Engines !
Only 79 (some sources say 81) were built so i wouldn't say it was a great succes....i don't think they met dessign specs and they were underpowered

 

As far as I can see, this is a picture of the actual Molotov´s plane taken in England, isn´t it?
Anybody knows what happened with the idea of the 5th engine driving the booster? Was it Soviet or foreign? Has anybody used it besides the Soviets?

 

The auxilliary engine was Soviet, a Klimov M-100A. Only the first four aircraft ( in addition to the two prototypes ) received the engine before the TsIAM ( Central Institute of Aviation Motors ) refused further production.

The picture looks like the same aircraft which took Molotov to Britain. It probably has four Mikulin AM-35A engines ( not diesel ) and no auxilliary engine.

 

The one Molotov used had definitely the 5th engine. That is why he was able to fly over Germany not fearing any unpleasant surprises.

 

Do you thin that Yermolayev Yer-2 could be counted as heavy bomber?

 

Anything that can fly, can by definition also bomb. And fall down.

Seriously - have no idea. But the plane had definitely a beautiful name !

 

I´m just guessing. I have a much better picture of the aircraft that took Molotov to Britain in a book of mine. It looks brand new, and most aircraft produced in 1942 had the AM-35A engines ( those which didn´t had diesel engines ), it could very well be a well kept 1939 model though. But the 1942 version of the TB-7 ( redesignated Pe-8 in 1943 ) was quite capable of making the flight as well. A flight which by the way was not made without difficulties, although my book¹ does not go into detail about what kind of difficulties.

¹'Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War', Yefim Gordon/Dmitri Khazanov

 

The Soviets classified it as a 'long range bomber' ( originally designated DB-240. DB = 'Dalny Bombardirovshcik', long range bomber ). With an empty weight between 8872kg and 10340kg depending on model, roughly the same as a B-25 or B-26, I would say it was a medium bomber.

 

I have the impression, that the first real heavy ones came, when the Soviets copied B-29.
The funny thing about the copying was, that some of the fuselage of the plane they laid their hands on was (internally) painted yello and the rest brown or green, whatever. They didn´t understand why, but all the Soviet copies (I don´t know the designation, but there were more than 1000 of them, AFAIK) had such painting inside. LAter, after the end of Cold War an old GRU officer found out, that it was because the workers did not a particular color of paint that day, they painted some parts of that particular plane yellow.
You don´t even imagine the scale of Soviet copying! Or do you? :roll:

 

Designation of Soviet copy of B-29 was Tupolev Tu-4. Acctualy they had two planes that landed in SSSR and were promptly interned ( as Soviet Union was not in war with Japan) and remains of two more that crashed on Soviet territory. Tupolev team was ordered by Stalin personaly to copy these planes. Problems arose becouse of different standards ( US and metric). All components exept electric wires were translated into metric system and approksimated. That is also a reason that some later soviet planes had electric wires in US system. Radio equipment used was coppied from B-25 Mitchell bombers that were procured thrue Land Lease. Soviets later said that B-25 radio equipment was superior to that in original B-29. Some Tu-4's were sold to China. Later wersions with turboprop engines ( like B-50) were also produced. In Chinese aviation museum is one such plane converted to flying radar ( with huge disk mounted on top ).
I dont know about colours of the interior. But soviet knew that both are simply zinc-cromate primers. Only difference is in tinting ( shading) of primer. Soviet normaly used nontinted variety ( looks like silver paint).

 

I had the story from a book by a former spy. I thought it was funny. And rather typical for much of Soviet development (not only military). I have two identical photo cameras. One is a wartime Leica, the other - a Zorki (Soviet Leica made on machines and designs carried away from Germany. You can´t tell a difference. And both work!

It was very interesting, Tiso!

 

I have a picture of a russian heavy bomber with 8 engines that was made before Operation barberossa.

 

The Tu-4 Bull was the Russian B-29, but there was a series of articles called Billion Dollar Bomber in Air International many years ago which followed the development of the B-29 copies. They evolved into the Tu-95 Bear - which cost the US about a billion dollars in radar systems to defend against it

 

I did some translation work on Ermolayev Er-2 in combat (not finished yet):

http://www.airwarfareforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3948

and a little preview of the A-model kit in 1/72:
http://www.airwarfareforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4012