TU160, TU 95 back in action.

Has been some talk for a while about the Russian strategic bombers being been brought out of mothballs & dusted off. Here's an article about mid air re-fueling practice:

Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers refueled in the air Wednesday from Il-78 tankers, an official representative of the defense ministry’s press service and information directorate, Colonel Vladimir Drik, reported.

“Fortunately, nearly 10 long-range aviation crews from the airbase at Ehngel’s (Saratov Oblast’) were involved in the flight methodological assembly for improving practical skills in the air,” Interfax reports Drik said.

According to him, in-flight refueling is one of the most complex flight missions for air force flight crews.

“Flights with in-flight refueling are included regularly at different stages of the Russian Federation armed forces training for operational deployment of aviation equipment from one region of the country to another,” Drik reflected.

He added that in 2010 during fulfillment of an assigned task by flight crews of long-range aviation, several records were established for time in the air on Tu-95MS and Tu-160 airplanes.

Source: 20.07.11, Vzglyad

Google Earth co-ordinates for the Engel AFB near Saratov are 51° 28'30"N 46°11'23"E

The current image shows, in the parking bay, four of the supersonic swing-wing TU 160 Blackjacks. To the left of them is the old cold war icon, the TU 95 Bear & to it's left is a Myasishchev Bison, either a 3M or 4M, too hard to tell at that resolution. The 4m reached IOC in 1954 & most have since been converted from bombers to tankers. The large wingspan can be seen here, always a problem with the Bison as it had bicycle gear & the jockey wheels on the ends of the wings were always out on the grass, off the strip. Couldn't see any IL-78 tankers in the image, they are probably not based there.

Cheers, Willedoo.

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Here's another interesting air base co-ordinate for viewers of Google Earth: 53° 05'17"N 26°01'53"E , is the Baranovichi base in Belarussia.

It was formerly a large long range bomber base under the USSR, housing up to two regiments of TU16's & 22's in it's heyday, as well as air defense fighters. Belarus inherited almost all of their air force from the Soviet Union & the current image shows nearly the entire Belarussian fleet of SU24's parked up, only one or two missing, looks like about 33 of them.

The SU24 is a strike bomber along the lines of our F111, slightly smaller, but with only about half the speed & range of the old Pig.

Seems to be a few Mig 29's parked there & possibly an SU27. Lots of bunkers & open storage bays seem to be unused these days, the base looks like a bit of a ghost town.

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