The Tu-22M doesn't look much like the Tu-22 Blinder. The Blinder was a medium-range bomber, the Backfire is a long-range bomber. The better explanation for why Tupolev designated the Backfire as a Tu-22M, rather than something like a Tu-157 is that Tupolev may have thought they would have better luck winning approval for an "improved" Tu-22 over a new project.
This Owner Is (Fifty-Plus Slices Of) Toast
1 hour ago
3 comments:
Noisy bastard, and I think you're exactly right!
The other theory is that the Soviets were trying to fool the Americans into thinking the Tu-22M was just a modified Tu-22 and thus not a long-range threat that needed considering under the then-in-progress SALT talks. Note that the Tu-22M isn't particularly long-ranged -- American heavy bombers have twice the range and payload -- so maybe that's not true. On the other hand the Tu-22M's range was enough to hit much of the West Coast if taking off from Siberia, so perhaps there was something to the notion that the Soviets were trying to hide the Tu-22M's range by calling it just a variant of the Tu-22.
When Republic built their first swept-wing fighter, the Air Force had them designate it the F-84F, because the AF could get money from Congress for continued production, but they were afraid that Congress wouldn't fund a new design.
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