Tupolev Tu-119 Information & Tupolev Tu-119 Links at HealthHaven.com

Tupolev Tu-119
	The Tu-95LAL test aircraft. The bulge in the middle covers the reactor.
Role	Experimental Nuclear aircraft
Manufacturer	Tupolev Design Bureau
Status	project only

The Tupolev Tu-119 (Tu-95LAL) test plane was a modified Tupolev Tu-95 Soviet bomber aircraft which flew from 1961 to 1965 to see if the use of a nuclear reactor could power a bomber nuclear aircraft with practically unlimited range.

[edit] Description

During the cold war the USSR had an experimental nuclear aircraft program, like the USA. On 12 August 1955 the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a directive ordering bomber-related companies to join forces in researching nuclear aircraft. The design bureaus of Andrei Tupolev and Vladimir Myasishchev became the chief design teams, while N.D. Kuznetsov and A.M. Lyulka, were assigned to develop the engines. They chose to focus on the direct cycle system from the start, testing ramjets, jet engines and even turboprops.

The Tupolev bureau, knowing the complexity of the task assigned to them, estimated that it would be two decades before the program could produce a working prototype. They assumed that the first operational nuclear-assisted airplane could take to the air in the late 1970s or early 1980s. In order to gain experience with the operational problems, they proposed building a flying testbed as soon as possible, mounting a small reactor in a Tupolev Tu-95M to create the Tu-119.

The reactor was fit in the bomb bay of the aircraft, although it did not fit cleanly and a "bump" was put on top as well. According to some sources, it had two conventional NK-12 outboard turboprop engines and two experimental NK-14 'dirty' direct cycle jet engines powered by a minimally shielded nuclear reactor in the main fuselage. Between May and August 1961, the Tu-119 completed 34 research flights^[1]. Most of these were made with the reactor shut down. The main purpose of the flight phase was examining the effectiveness of the radiation shielding which was one of the main concerns for the engineers. Massive amounts of liquid sodium, beryllium oxide, cadmium, paraffin wax as well as steel plates were used for protection. Some sources claim that the aircraft could stay in the air for around 48 hours, or for as long as the air crew could survive the radiation emitted by the reactor. The results were promising; radiation levels were low enough to consider continuing development. But, as in the US, development never continued past this point. The obvious potential of the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile made the expensive nuclear program superfluous, and it was scaled back.

[edit] Specifications (Tu-119)

This aircraft article is missing some (or all) of its specifications. If you have a source, you can help Wikipedia by adding them.

[edit] See also

Comparable aircraft

Convair X-6

[edit] References

Notes

^ From the television/DVD documentary, Planes That Never Flew: The Atomic Plane, Discovery Channel Europe and Alba Communications Ltd., (c) 2003

Bibliography

Gordon, Yefim; Komissarov, Dmitriy and Sergey (2004). OKB Ilyushin: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 1-85780-187-3.

[edit] External links

Tu-119 (German)
Ту-95ЛАЛ - самолет с ядерным реактором (Russian)
Ту-95ЛАЛ (заказ 247) (Russian) (translation)

[0] From the television/DVD documentary, Planes That Never Flew: The Atomic Plane, Discovery Channel Europe and Alba Communications Ltd., (c) 2003

[1]

Contents

[edit] Description

[edit] Specifications (Tu-119)

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links