In 1955 a monumental aircraft appears in the Soviet skies. It is the Tupalov TU-95 Bear. The fastest propeller driven aircraft in the world. It is capable of dropping nuclear weapons in the heartland of America. Russia became fascinated with large bombers very early. In 1912, Igor Sikorsky began to build the huge Bolshoi Baltisky. The Baltic Grand Also known as the World's first four engine airplane, this is a replica of its successor, the Ilya Muromets, which was larger still. It had a wingspan of 113 feet and weighed about five tons. Almost 80 Ilya Muromets bombers were built. They served the Imperial Russian Air Service with distinction in World War I. In Soviet Russia in 1917, the new Red Air Force was neglected. The leaders of the Soviet state allowed the assets of the old Imperial Air Service to run down. In a country where the horse was still a military weapon, support for aviation was not widespread. But slowly the value of the airplane was recognized. Aircraft and spare parts were salvaged. Factories were reopened. From 1917 to 1920 as the Civil War swept through Russia. The Red Army used aircraft primarily for reconnaissance. Most of the fighting took place on the ground, involving men, horses and guns In January 1924, Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet leader, died. No one was powerful enough to replace him as a clearcut leader. Joseph Stalin was a member of the Troika, a group of three men who replaced Lenin at the head of the Communist Party and the state. By this time, Soviet aviation was beginning to recover from the effects of brain drain and neglect. The Society of Friends of the Air Fleet set out to raise interest in flight and money to build planes. They aim straight at the people of the Soviet state for support. Their slogans: "Workers. Build an Air Fleet" and "Proletariat Take To The Air" were designed to identify industrial workers with the new Air Force Their first squadron of aircraft formed in 1922. It was named in memory of Lenin. Stalin was engaged in the political struggle to gain sole leadership of the Soviet state and of the Communist Party At the same time, young, bright Soviet designers were beginning to emerge from the new academies. The Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute, known as TsAGI, was established in late 1918. By the mid 20s it was well on its way to becoming the Soviet Union's most important Center for aerodynamic research. Soggy had an interest in big aircraft from the beginning. In 1919, its founder, Nikolai Zhukovsky, proposed the design of a large transport aircraft. A prototype was built but was not successful. At that time, TsAGI's chief designer was Andrei Tupolev. He was influenced by the German Junkers Company's use of metal in aircraft construction He also used TsAGI's design and test facilities to work towards the production of a long range aircraft for bombers or transports. Throughout the 20s and into the 30s, target's test facilities expanded. Its wind tunnels in particular became an essential tool for a Soviet aircraft industry that was beginning to throw into the influence of foreign designers and develop an identity of its own. Tupolev's first really large aircraft, the ANT-4, flew in 1925, the world's first all metal twin engine monoplane heavy bomber. It was an extremely successful design, but for Tupolev it was just one of a long series of extraordinary large aircraft. The ANT-9 flew in May 1929. It was a nine passenger airliner that proved its long range capability by flying from Moscow to London and back via Berlin in 53 flying hours. It was just one of a number of major long distance flights by Tupolev's aircrafts in the 20s and 30s. The ANT-6 of 1930 was the first Soviet four engine heavy bomber It was also produced as a troop carrier with room for 30 fully equipped soldiers. The Soviet strategic bombing policy was based on this aircraft. With the ANT-4, it made the Soviet bomber force the largest in the world at the time. More than 800 ANT-6s were built and it remained in service right through the 1930s In June 1933, Andre Tupolev's remarkable ANT-25 flew for the first time Its wingspan was 111 feet. But the fuselage was only 44 feet long. It had fuel tanks in the wings, retractable landing gear and only one engine Theoretically at least, it could stay in the air for over 100 hours. It was built on the orders of Stalin as a recordbreaking aircraft, but was also but was also thought to have potential as a long range bomber. It never became a bomber, but it certainly broke records. In September 1934, an ANT-25 made a nonstop closed circuit flight of almost 8000 miles, a record that was not broken until the 1970s. In June and July 1937, ANT-25s flew nonstop from Moscow to America by way of the North Pole, on two separate occasions, staying in the air for more than 60 hours on each flight. The June flight to Portland covered 5300 miles and the second to San Jacinto near Los Angeles in California was 1000 longer In 1934 came Tupolev's most extraordinary aircraft, at least in terms of size. The project began in 1932, when the Union of Soviet Writers and Editors. Raise 6,000,000 rubles for the construction of a giant aircraft to carry the name of the Russian rider Maxim Gorky and to create a Maxim Gorky Propaganda Squadron. The aircraft The aircraft Tupolev designed was metal. It had a wingspan of 206 feet, and was powered by eight engines of 900 horsepower each It flew for the first time on May the 19th, 1934, and then joined the Maxim Gorky Squadron for propaganda flights all over the Soviet Union, showering pamphlets, broadcasting messages and music from its loud speakers and even projecting images onto clouds The Maxim Gorky was the world's largest land plane at the time. Its potential as a bomber design was not lost on the West. It could fly over 1000 miles without refueling. It was faster than many fighters, but almost exactly a year after its first flight it crashed, brought down by an escort fighter performing unauthorized aerobatics. In spite of Soviet achievements in the design of heavy, long range aircraft in the 30s. By the time World War II broke out, there was only one long range strategic bomber in the Soviet infantry. It was the Petlyakov Pe-8. The Pe-8 project began under Tupolev in 1936, but was delegated to the Petlyakov Bureau in 1938. Petlyakov had been wing designer on a number of major Tupolev aircraft For its time It was an advanced design. The PE-8 entered service in 1940 and took part in the retaliatory raids on Berlin in 1941, but losses were heavy and such long range raids were not persevered with. The PE-8 was used regularly throughout the war to fly VIPs to conferences of allies in Britain and in America. In its final form it was at least as fast, and its range at least as long as the multi-engine bombers of Britain and America. But the pressure in the Great Patriotic War was for small Twin engine tactical bombers in the P8 was never produced in quantity. The introduction of the Extraordinary Boeing B-29 was an event of great importance to the outcome of the war. The United States now had an aircraft and unprecedented long range, high altitude performance. Throughout the war, The Soviets had made repeated requests for the Allies for a 4 engine bomber to replace the PE-8. There was no response. The Soviets had already seen the need for a future strategic Air Force, given the massive striking power Britain and America now possessed. Then in August in November 1944 three USA FB-29s landed on Soviet territory in the Far East after running low on fuel. Stalin had been presented with the windfall gift in the shape of the world's most advanced strategic bomber Tupolev was ordered to copy the airframe and Shvestov, the engine designer, to copy the Wright whirlwind engines. Just one year later, the prototype TU-4, the Soviet copy of the B-29, was flying. In April 1946, The Soviet Long Range Air Force was revived. In 1947 the Western authorities were shocked to see the first three preproduction T-U4s flying in the Aviation Day parade. It took two years to complete the flight test program and the TU-4 did not enter service until 1949. In the United In the United States, the B-29 was already obsolete, but the TU-4 codenamed by NATO Bull, was produced in quantity. one and a half thousand were built before production ended in 1954 The end of the Great Patriotic War in 1945 was a great turning point in the history of the Soviet Union. Four years of extreme struggle had ended in a victory for a population that had been totally committed to resisting Hitler's invasion and turning it back on itself. Celebration was sweet. The task of rebuilding the ravaged nation was immense. The litter of war was gathered, committed to furnaces and melted down. But the steel of the German guns and helmets and tanks and trucks would all not be reformed into post war equivalents of ploughshares. As a Soviet nation was marshaled to rebuild, the Kremlin confronted a new world strategic situation. The possibility of another war, a war between East and West was looming. If the United States could drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, it could equally deposit one on Leningrad, and the Soviet military had little knowledge of radar, early warning systems, or jet engine design or surface to air defenses. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1946, U.S. Secretary of State Burns summarizes the situation from the American point of view Members of the conference, we must try to understand one another even when we cannot agree with one another. We must never accept any disagreement as final. We must work together until we can find solutions. Which, while not perfect, our solutions, which can be defended the world longing for peace, will not forgive us if in striving for perfection we fail to obtain peace. The United States believes that those who fought the war should make the peace. In 1947, Mayday Parade in Red Square continued the pre-war Soviet tradition of mammoth shows, a military strength. In spite of the scale of the display, Stalin knew that Soviet military technology was lagging behind the West. The Great Convair B-36. Could fly 6800 miles and carry 84,000 pounds of bombs. Its appearance forced the Soviets to develop a large version of their B-29 copy, but by the time it was ready, America leapfrogged into the age of the Intercontinental jet bomber In April 1947, Berliners struggled with floods and a Soviet blockade of their city, which aimed to force the Americans and British out of the former German capital. In poor weather conditions, one of the American aircraft flying supplies into Berlin crashed. It was the beginning of an airlift in which British and American planes flew thousands of tons of food in a day over the Soviet blockade. What is now being referred to as the Cold War deepened. Relations between the West and the Soviet Union reach new levels of stress. After three months of blockade, the situation was deadlocked. And in September 1948, the question of reunification of Berlin was submitted to the United Nations. This is Doctor Philip Jessup from the American delegation giving his country's view of Soviet action in Berlin. Soviet Government, using the harsh instrument of the blockade, has indeed chosen a strange way in Berlin to live up to this agreement. To democratize German political life. Thanks to the air bridge and to the support given it by the Berliners, the Soviet government has not defeded in its first. Now, Mr. President, as I pointed out to the Security Council before, we could have used our armed force against the Soviet threat, or we could have neatly submitted and surrendered our rights and duties in Berlin, subjecting nearly two and a half million Germans. Soviet rule, with all that implies. What we actually did and what we're still doing is to live up to our obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and try to settle the question by peaceful discussion while continuing to discharge our obligations in Berlin. By May 1949, the blockade was over, but the Western powers had formed NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a united front against the Soviet Union. By 1952, the world political situation had become even more tense. The Soviet Union had announced that it possessed nuclear weapons, and America had tested the hydrogen bomb. The communist German Democratic Republic had been established. So had the People's Republic of China. The Korean War was continuing. In America, General Dwight Eisenhower ran for the presidency and won a landslide victory on the side of the Republican Party It wasn't the only radical change in the world leadership. In March 1953, Joseph Stalin, who had been the power behind the Soviet Union for almost 30 years, had a stroke and died. Western analysts looked for emergence of a clear successor. They found it in the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev. The prototype Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flew for the first time in April the B-36. It could fly halfway around the world without refueling and reach speeds close to the speed of sound. It was an impressive aircraft and would remain the symbol of American intercontinental air power for 30 years. But while America led the Intercontinental Strategic Bomber race in 1952 it was not by as much as the Westerners may have imagined This is the Tupolev TU-16 code name the Badger by NATO. It made its first flight at about the same time as the B-25, and while it didn't match the B-52's range or speed, it was still a major achievement for Soviet aviation. The TU-16 could fly at more than 600 miles an hour and its range of 3,000 miles could be extended by aerial refueling from the wing tip of a tanker version of the same aircraft. The TU-16 was not intended to The TU-16 was not intended to compete directly with the B-52. It was designed as a medium range bomber and closely match the performance of the American medium jet bomber of the time, the Boeing B-47. Almost 2,000 TU-16s were produced for the Long Range Air Force and the Naval Air Forces between 1952 and 1958. The TU-16 originated from a Red Air Force request for replacement for the TU-4. The two main design bureaus in the competition were Tupolev and Ilyushin. Ilyushin had already had a successful jet bomber, the IL-28, in service. They chose simply to scale it up to a larger version, but Tupolev was developing a completely new design, and when the Ilyushin and Tupolev prototypes flew off against each other, the Tupolev aircraft was superior. It went into production as the TU-16 The The Ilyushin competitor, the IL-42 was an oldfashioned straight winged aircraft with the jet engines in a large wing pod. But the TU-16 was a thoroughly modern design. Its advanced aerodynamic features place it on par with any comparable Western aircraft It had swept wings with a span of 108 feet. Its two engines were recessed smoothly into the sides of the fuselage at the wing roots. The engine nacelles themselves were more slender in the middle Than at the front or back giving a wasted effect that was intended to reduce drag, the TU-16 carried a crew of six. Two were Gunners. The forward dorsal gunner operated from a bubble on the top of the fuselage. There were two pilots in the main cockpit and the navigator was housed in the glazed nose section. This is the bomb site, but not all Badgers were bombers During its long service life, NATO identified at least 11 different variations. Some were naval anti shipping versions and others were used for electronic surveillance. The TU-16 could carry up to 8,000 pounds of bombs in its internal bomb bay It could also carry missiles under the wings or a standoff bomber under the fuselage. The rear gunner was housed in a turret right in the tail of the aircraft. The fin and rudder were mounted high on top of the fuselage to keep them well above the level of the wing and the engines. The TU-16 was an extremely successful aircraft with a very long service life. It was still being produced in China in the 1980s and some TU-16s are still operational in Russia. The civilian derivative, the TU-104r, was one of the first jet airliners to go into service anywhere in the world. This is the Myasishchev Atlant. It's the civilian version of the Myasishchev M-4, known to NATO as the Bison, the Soviet Union's first attempt at a genuine intercontinental jet bomber. The Atlant was developed in the mid 80s to transport the Soviet Space Shuttle, the Buran, on its back. The large tank this one is carrying is used for liquid hydrogen, also for the shuttle program. Apart from its large twin vertical tails in the carrying attachment on the fuselage, the Atlant is basically the same as its ancestor, which was first seen in public at the Soviet Aviation Day flypast in 1954. The Bison was the Soviet Union's first series attempt to match the B-52 and build a heavy jet bomber with intercontinental range. It was a response to Joseph Stalin's 1949 order for work to begin on a jet bomber capable of flying to the USA and back. When the prototype of the Myasishchev M-4 was finished, it was called the Molot, the Hammer. Andrei Tupolev, knowing that Soviet jet engines were not sufficiently developed to satisfy Stalin's demand, chose not to compete with Myasishchev and instead concentrated on the development of a turboprop engine capable of powering a large aircraft. Stalin's requirement was that the intercontinental bomber be capable of flying 10,000 miles. Myasishchev used four of the same jet engines that power the Tupolev TU-16, but they were not capable of delivering Stalin's range. Myasishchev had been given special resources to build his mammoth aircraft. A new factory was built and he was given a free hand to recruit 1500 designers and technicians from other design bureaus. The Bison was not as big as its American opponent, the B-52. Its wingspan was 20 feet less. Its maximum takeoff weight was 350,000 pounds compared to that of the B-52's half a million. There were similarities, however. The main landing gear was housed in a fuselage in a tandem arrangement similar to the B-52's. Like the landing gear of all Russian aircraft, it was massive. For stability, the tips of the drooping wings were fitted with small outrigger wheels. When the prototype was completed and tested in flight, it was a disappointment. Myasishchev's hammer was not the tool to strike fear into the Cold War hearts of the American population. Instead of Stalin's 10,000 miles, the Bison could only manage 5 and a half turbofan engines, which were more powerful and economical, were fitted to later versions. But by then Khrushchev was concentrating resources on strategic rockets, and Andrei Tupolev's giant turbo prompt bomber, the Bear, was in operation. Bison continued to be produced, but never in large numbers. Their prime roles switched to long range naval operations, and some were converted to tankers. They began to be phased out of service in the mid 80s. At the Geneva summit in July 1955, the reunification of Germany, European security and disarmament were on the agenda for discussion by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. President Eisenhower made his Open Skies proposal. Suggesting that America and the Soviet Union exchange defense blueprints and allow mutual aerial surveillance in the interests of slowing down the arms race, Nikita Khrushchev did not accept. In they had just glimpsed what would prove to be the world's fastest propeller driven aircraft. A bomber with a range of almost 8000 miles, A bomber quite capable of flying across the North Pole and reaching America. The turboprop engine that gave the Bear its speed and range was developed by the Kuznets soft Bureau. Kuznetsov were helped by engineers who had worked with the Yonkers company, recruited from Germany at the end of the war between 1950 and 1954, they developed a turbo shaft engine that could produce over 12,000 horsepower and drive a pair of counter rotating propellers. The propellers themselves were supersonic with automatic pitch change. The combination of engine and propeller was extremely efficient and justified tupalips decision to seek long range and high. Speed through turboprop rather than just through pure jet power, the Bear could fly 100 miles an hour faster than anyone thought possible in a propeller driven aircraft. It could reach 575 miles an hour. In October 1956 there was a wave of protest across Europe at the civility of Soviet action and crushing Hungary's anti Soviet revolt. In West Berlin. There was a torch lit mass meeting in Paris, the headquarters of the Communist Party was put to the torch. In Holland the Communist Party building was stoned. There was a fear that Soviets were reverting to tactics like those employed by Stalin to keep the Soviet Union together. In March 1958, Nikita Khrushchev, who had been first Secretary of the Communist Party since the death of Stalin and the strong man of Soviet politics, consolidated his power even further in the eyes of the West. He was elected premier, replacing Nikolai Bulganin and becoming the first Soviet leader since Stalin to be premier and party secretary. As he accepted the office, he said we shall conquer capitalism with a high level of work and a higher standard of living. The arrival of the TU-95 Bear in service in the late 50s was a unique achievement for the Tupolev Design Bureau. It was the. Only turboprop driven strategic bomber ever to enter the first line service in the world and it was forced to change in American defensive thinking. Its potential as a strategic bomber and its potential to reach US soil via the North Pole forced the US to divert money and technology into the construction of interceptor fighter bases and early warning radar sites. The basic model Bear was a long range strategic bomber. It was not as big as the B-52 but was still an enormous aircraft. Its wingspan was nearly 170 feet. Its maximum take off weight was 415,000 pounds. And it could. Carry 20,000 pounds of nuclear or free fall conventional weapons. The Bear was a direct descendant of the Tupolev TU-4 Bull, which means that it was also closely related to the American B-29 from which the bull was copied. But superficially at least, the similarity is not that obvious. The Bear is a very exotic looking aircraft. The appearance of the bear is dominated by its propellers. They are enormous, 16 and a half feet in diameter, 4 blades on each propeller, 4 engines, 2 propellers driven by each engine revolving in opposite directions, a total of 32 blades. To propel the bear at its maximum speed. They're revolving at 750 revolutions a minute. The speed of the propellers of the tips is Mach 1.08, just over the speed of sound. The Kuznetsov turboprop engines could produce almost 15,000 horsepower each. Their housed in long, narrow nacelles fared into the swept wings. The original TU-95, the Bear A, carried its bomb load internally, but the Bear B, introduced into service in the early 60s, could also carry a single large Kangaroo air to surface missile underneath the fuselage. The Kangaroo missile was roughly the size and shape of a MiG-17. It had a range of 400 miles and could travel twice the speed of sound. The landing gear for the Bear had to be extremely long to give the propellers ground clearance, and as in all Soviet military aircraft, it had to be rugged to allow landing on rough, unmade strips. The combination of 32 propeller blades and four extremely powerful turboprop engines made the Bear one of the loudest aircraft in the history of aviation. Its noise echoed around Soviet airfields from miles. There are even stories of American fighter pilots experiencing discomfort because of engine noise from the Bears under escort penetrating their cockpit. The Bear had a crew of between eight and ten. The number varied depending on the nature of the mission. There were two pilots and one or two navigators. The rest of the crew were radar operators and Gunners. The Gunners and observers of the rear of the aircraft were physically separated from the pilot station at the front by about 50 yards of fuselage. The defensive armament of the basic bear was heavy. It had a remotely controlled turret underneath the fuselage with two cannons. There was a fixed forward firing cannon in the nose and there was a man tail turret with another two cannons. But other versions of the Bear, particularly those from Maritime reconnaissance, carried less defensive armor. Some naval versions of the Bear were not used as weapons systems themselves, but provided targeting data to missile control and guidance stations on board Soviet ships or aircraft that were too far away from their target to aim accurately. Using information from the Bears, they could launch their anti shipping missiles in precisely the right direction. The observation blisters on each side of the rear fuselage were used by Gunners to aim the cannon in the remotely controlled turret underneath the aircraft's belly. On versions without the ventral turret, they could be used to house surveillance or photographic equipment. In 1963, Bear Bs flying over the American fleet near the Azores and off Midway Island were intercepted by American fighters. They were different from Bear A in that they had a long inflight refueling probes in the nose and the recesses that were normally occupied by the Kangaroo missile were fared over and fitted with camera ports for photographic surveillance. There was also a large blister on the starboard side of the fuselage. The Bears were particularly interested in the U.S. carrier Forrestal and Constellation, and a great deal of film was exposed by both the Soviets and the Americans as the cat and mouse game between fighter and reconnaissance aircraft was played out. The Bear D was identified by NATO in 1967. These American F-4 Phantoms are shadowing 1 to take pictures. The Bear D had a large blister fairing under the center of the fuselage. It has surface search radar. Opportunities to photograph the aircraft in detail were accepted whenever possible by NATO aircraft. So that the latest information on the development could be analyzed and fed into the identification system. A Soviet manned bomber fleet capable of striking freely around the world had been Stalin's dream, a response to the development of the Great American bombers of the late 40s and 50s, and Khrushchev's attitude was different. He decided that increasing reliance would be placed on long range surface to surface missiles for the delivery of the Soviet nuclear weapons. By the mid 50s the intercontinental ballistic missile seemed more promising to Khrushchev than the manned bomber. His opinion was shared by other high-ranking military personnel. In 1955, the Commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force predicted the demise of the manned bomber. He said they were too expensive to build, man and maintain, They had to be housed in large airfields and they were vulnerable to air attack. They tied up large numbers of maintenance personnel and needed great supplies of fuel. Missiles, on the other hand, were cheaper to build, less costly to maintain, easily concealable and less vulnerable. That view was reinforced in the early 60s. A publication on Soviet military strategy said that the defeat of the enemy's strategic weapons and land forces would largely be achieved by nuclear missile strikes. In the early 60s, some Soviet military academies stopped training bomber crews and instead concentrated on preparing officers for the strategic rocket force. Long range bomber personnel began to worry about their careers. But even though under Khrushchev the role of the long range bomber force was downgraded, it was still in a condition to be revived. Soviet missile development did not proceed as quickly and effectively as Khrushchev wished. Production of the Bear and the Badger continued into the 60s. Bombers were capable of carrying air launch guided missiles that allowed them to stand off from the target rather than have to penetrate deep into the enemy airspace. By the late 60s, a resurgence in belief in the long range bomber was beginning. While it was accepted that the Bear, the Badger, and the Bison would never penetrate American airspace, they could still easily reach most parts of Europe with their range supplemented by an efficient system of aerial refueling. And their ability to use either standoff weapons or freefall bombs, they were still a major threat to the West. Even when the supersonic Backfire and later the Blackjack entered service, there was still a place for the Bear. In 1984, 30 years after the prototype TU-95 flew, a new variant identified by NATO as Bear H entered service. It could carry a long range cruise missile and was capable of hitting targets inside the USA without ever entering American airspace. At the time, the Bear H, which appeared with much less fanfare than the supersonic Blackjack, was seen as a major threat to Europe and America. The cruise missile it carried, the AS-15, was considered a serious challenge to the American air defense system. After almost 40 years of service, the great rumble of the Bears engines can still be heard across Russia, Europe and other oceans of the world. These days they are even becoming welcome guests at some of the world's greatest air shows, giving Western audiences a close up look at one of the most extraordinary aircraft ever built. In the Soviet Union, most major civil aircraft were developed from military designs. The extraordinary TU-114 airliner was the development of the TU-95 Bear. It entered service in the early 60s and could carry up to 220 passengers. This is not just any field in Russia, it's part of the Monino Air Force Museum outside Moscow. Where one of these giant Soviet airliners is part of the collection. In 1959 a TU-114 flew Nikita Khrushchev from Moscow to New York nonstop. The 4162 miles were covered in 11 hours in a propeller driven aircraft. At the time it was the largest and heaviest commercial airliner in the world. It remained in service until the late 60s, flying international routes to France, Canada, India and Japan, competing successfully with a new generation of jet airline. And when I arrived in Moscow in the first week of January 1993, as we came out of the cloud, I was entering that foreign. Hostile territory that I've been trained to operate against for the past 35 years. Suddenly, there I was, in the middle of it all, in the snow. Anyway, I got there and it was the old system. It was the old Russian Bear. I was not going to be given too much of a welcome. I had diplomatic immunity or I would have one. I've been signed in, but nevertheless, I was not expecting a great deal of eager cooperation. And indeed my task was to see as much of them as I could without annoying them sufficiently to get them really annoyed. The spring of 1994 called Bowen who was then the driving force and the and the Chief Executive, as it were of the RAF Benevolent Funds International Air Tattoo, alternating those years, occasionally from Green and Common, but more usually from Fairford down in Gloucestershire. And I got a call saying we'd really love to have a Russian Bear, or preferably two Russian Bears come to Fairford. Can you fix it? I said, well, no, but I I will go and ask. I suspect the answer is not going to be anything other than "Niet". Yet they they just don't seem to be up for this sort of thing. I phoned, I made an appointment and I went and I spoke to my man in the VVS and he said yes. I said, can I just have that absolute certainty there will be no objection to a pair of Russian aircraft going to an air display in England in the summer of this year. No, he said. I think that will be okay. So I checked back with Paul Bowen and he said that's amazing, that is astonishing. Tell me how the thing develops. So I went back to VVS and said again, they're very happy in the UK, they're very delighted. This is going to happen. Now when are we going to know which aircraft and and so forth. And they said, well, there's something that we should make clear. We will obviously have to support these aircraft because they're going to be away from base and far on setting. And so we've got a support team and here's the list and he added me a list which ran to I think 3 pages. There were 76 names on it. They contain the, the two crews, 13 in each aircraft and then. I think that's 26, another 50, nearly all of whom were colonels or above of the Russian Air Force and the Russian Naval Air Service. There were a couple of warrant officers and there were some majors, but effectively it was a bunch of boys on for a good trip. They would all be traveling in an Ilyushin Il-76 Candid, and all three aircraft would be expected to have full refueling facilities and full tanks before they left. The UK and they would obviously wish for appropriate accommodation, hotel accommodation and given the current situation, they'd really rather like some spending money for these individuals. So I went back and phoned Paul and said, Are you ready for this? I don't know what the fuel capacity is of a bear, but you're going to have to fill two of them up and if you want one of them to fly, you'll obviously have to fill it each time it does its display and we'll have a Candid and then we've got 76 people who want hotel accommodation. Entertainment and money to spend. And he said yeah, it'll be okay. So I went back again and said to the Russians, that's fine, it's all agreed, accepted. I've got the list and I will be sending it to the authorities in the UK so they know who they will have to take in, in clearance terms, Russian embassy, so forth. Then I had a call from Paul Bowen and said hey, this is fantastic and I've got an idea, I want central TV. To send a crew out and probably just a director and a cameraman, but I think we ought to be able to film this from the whole start point of Russia to the arrival in Fairfield, displaying in Fairfield and going away. I said, well, I can ask. He said, well, could you? Could you make sure that the request includes the cameraman flying in in the bear? I said no, Paul, I well, yes. All right, I'll ask. I'll ask. And I went back to my friend in VVS and I said, right, this is the sketch they'd like a camera team or a television team with a cameraman to come over and film the expedition, and indeed to film from inside one of the operational aircraft. That's okay, said the Russian. And I was stupified by this, but I had the presence of mind to say at that stage, well, in that case. Since these Russian aircraft will be going as a gaggle of three into British airspace and and so forth and and now you've got British cameraman and so on crawling around the bottom of one of the aircraft, I think you ought to have me on board as a sort of on board interpreter. You know air traffic control procedures, air traffic language. There's got to be some guarantee that it'll all be understood and responded to properly. Yeah Okay. So all of a sudden. From what I thought was a complete no chance, we now have three airplanes, 2 operational Bears, a Candid full of generals and Admirals, a TV crew on board one of them and me alongside as well. And that's exactly what happened. The Russian main airfield outside Moscow military airfield, Chkalovsky. We, I rendezvoused with the TV team. We then went out there and we rendezvoused with the. Candid load. We clambered on the Candid and flew up to the naval main station in Kaliningrad in the enclave on the Baltic shore. There we landed parked the aircraft. The Bears were already there. The Naval Aviation One was on its home base. The Russian Airforce one had flown up from somewhere in the South and so the base commander came to meet us and said hurry along. Put your bags in the accommodation because we're going to have a little party and so we put our bags in the accommodation. We came back out, got into a series of Russian equivalents of Jeeps, Land Rovers and so on, then shot away to the Baltic shore. Couple of wrecked bits of old shipping were on the sand and we went and played amongst those. I also noticed that there were long, long tables set out on the clifftop with much. Interesting salady things getting quite sort of warm in the bright sunshine. Lots of glasses, lots of bottles and some of the bottles were beer. And I said to the Russians, I think if we're going to go and have a swim, we might take some of these bottles down with us and we can leave them in the sea and get them cool because they're not doing much and drinking warm beer. That may be your idea of what the Brits do, but it's not mine. So in fact we carried a couple of cases of beer down. We had a good swim and we put the beer in to get it cool and we came back up. The base commander then appeared in his underpants and with his tame chef behind him, and they came to the open air stoves and started. The cook started to cook and the base commander started to make us welcome, which of course involved the large glasses that we had, which was sort of jam jar size and jam jar capacity and into which the first of the vodka of the day was now being. And that's the way it continued, it continued. For a long afternoon into the early evening, and the food came and the vodka continued, the food came again, and more vodka, and slowly but surely in particular my unfortunates from Central TV became, how shall we say, slightly confused about everything at the end of it all, which has been a thoroughly wonderful afternoon picnic by now, quiet. Towards midevening. We got back into the vehicles and disappeared back towards the main base, pausing only at the halfway distance. Someone obviously felt the need at jumped the deputy Commander, the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of Naval Aviation to insist that it was time we had a drink for the road. So we paused and had a couple of drinks for the road. Then we got back and I think my TV chums now thought this was time for bed, said to me. But no, it's time for the Banya the song. So we. Carried forward, stripped off, went into the cabin, were super heated, hit with steam from all directions, with large lumps of Birch by a lady. And then we plunged into the cold pool. And then we rushed outside and then came back in and went to Wolf road again and eventually subsided into a series of small lounging chairs and had some more work really. And that was where it ended, and it was where it ended for everybody, especially the two TV folks. The next morning was quite a quite a gentle start. I mean, it's the best way, but we got into our airplanes. I clambered up into the Navy Bear, the Tupolev 142, and I looked around for where the television chaps were and they said no, they're going to travel in the Candid, in the glazed nose of the candid, and then they'll be filmed the whole thing. And we know we're going to be intercepted by everybody and his dog as we go through the Baltic and out into the North Sea. Everyone will want to have a look at the gaggle of bears so they'll travel in the Candid, at which stage I got into my seat halfway down the back on the left side of the airplane. It's interesting. And they started all the engines and then shut down the two inboards and taxied on the outboard engines. We taxied quite fast and got ahead of the. Air Force version and and got airborne and turned left heading for UK and I said you know aren't we waiting for the the system to gather us all together And they said no, no, no, no, we're off now we're going fine and looking down I can see the Air Force version just getting on the runway and the Candid probably not even started its engines and they never did catch up So there never was a central TV documentary film made in the flight of the Bear. Which was a shame. On the other hand, it meant that I didn't give my attention to translating for their directorial announcements and so on from from their filming position because they weren't there. I was impressed to see how well they did work as a crew, and I noticed how much of a sort of challenging response and exchange of words and music went on as they got this gigantic set of engines going at the start. A bit of a laborious process. It wasn't just a master switch on press the button and go. It took a little time. An extraordinarily versatile airplane. It's variety of weapon systems, anti shipping, anti submarine, anti radar. Just basic long range bombing missions, long range surveillance missions and long range is a feature. I mean they used to fly to Cuba via Iceland with no stops on the way. I mean the. They were quite capable of gigantic journeys. The Poles came up and had a look. The Germans came and had a look, the Danes, the Norwegians. And then we got through the Baltic up the other side. But the next thing we saw was a gaggle of Tornadoes. F-3s came in and there's an awful lot of photographs of Tornadoes intercepting. Bears and Lightnings, intercepting bears and so on. And there's always, you know someone's Air Force wall has always got there's me with the Bear, you know in my tornado or whatever. Well, I took pictures from the inside of the bear and I was able to present at least two of the pilots with a picture of them seen from the other side. So the Tornado looking along the wing and down past those gigantic counter-rotating propellers at a Tornado stuck in on the wing. There was a great atmosphere of of a great crew working together, atmosphere. They were all pretty excited because although they'd obviously all probably flown past the British coast on a number of occasions all around the Baltic and over the top, they were nonetheless all going to be going actually into the enemy air space as it were, not to be threatened but to be welcomed and put on the ground. So there was a lot of excitement. The the navigators in particular, and the systems operators, systems operators have very little to do. So they were all clashing around trying to get near all the considerable number of windows and blazed areas so they can see what was going on. There were people taking lots of film shots from inside for their personal Diaries. Great stuff. We landed having been escorted in all the way. The Airforce one caught up very soon after and the Candid. Probably 20 minutes later. One of the Navy front end chaps as we landed said we must have a team photo. They they have the same approach as aviators worldwide. Let's have a team photo so we all clambered out of the airplane and stood in front of it under the under the nose and a spare body knocked, the crew got the camera ready and someone said wait a minute 1-2-3-4-5-6... Oh of course, the tail gunner. Where was he? Well answer, he was still in his turret. There's no throughway through the airplane to get to and although he was able to climb in whilst at base, he climbed in by going up onto the revetment, opening the Hatch and getting in from ground level as it were. We're now on the ground at Fairford and he's about 22 feet above the ground and he can open his hatch but he can't get out. So eventually, and it took a long time, we found somebody with a ladder and he came and we then had the complete team photo. Then we had a week of of looking after the Russians on the loose in England with entertainment money in their pockets. There was some highlights, some of which are probably best left discreetly to one side, but both crews were surprised to find them being the center of attention. The King of Jordan, King Hussein at the time, came to visit. Great enthusiasts for aviation always has been, and he was taken up inside our Bear and sat at at the controls and had a good time. He and and Queen Noor were introduced to the crew. Another visitor was coming the following day and it was scheduled to be also a visit to the naval aircraft because the Airforce one was going to be the one that did the daily display. So we were going to be on on show on the ground, interestingly parked between a B-52 and a B-1. And there was a lot of interplay between the crews of those two who I don't think had ever received Russian Admirals on board their aircraft before and nor, I think, had the Russians received a B-1 Colonel before on board. But that's another piece of the story. But one lovely morning the Russian Navy crew had been slightly over refreshed and were a bit late on parade. They came galloping up, but too late for the visitor who was in fact His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent, who. Many years back I knew was working in the Defense Intelligence staff when I was, and he was learning Russian at the time. And of course, if you've seen Prince Michael of Kent, you'll know that he looks just like the last Tsar, Nicholas the Second. He is a dead ringer for the Tsar. And so when this Navy crew came galloping up, they formed up at the bottom of the steps of the aircraft knowing there was a VIP on board. And when he came down and walked towards them and addressed them in Russian, you could see their little brains were in turmoil. What on earth's going on? What is this? I'm not sure that there is a Russian Candid camera or you've been framed, but they were convinced there was some grotesque joke going on. It's wonderful, absolutely marvelous. The long and the short of it was that we. Wrapped up at the end of a week because we'd arrived two days before the the weekend of shows and we left after the shows were all over. And my last memory and and probably the last memory that the receiving British will retain, is that our accommodation was in the Bear Hotel. Nearly all of us were in the Bear Hotel in in Hungerford and the last morning breakfast was being served the usual paste and with the usual contents. Russians rather enjoyed the full English. They thought that was a good idea, but their own stockkeeping and the Mystics management had gone to pot and they've got no vodka, so they needed some vodka to help the breakfast time. That's the sort of thing you do. And so the Bear Hotel of Hungerford, the hotel manager, I still don't know that he was really feeling that he could do it, but he was asked if he could serve some ice cold vodka for breakfast, if you don't mind. He eventually did and that was fine and we then proceeded. I have to say I'll be quite fair here. The the upfront operating members of the crew were not drinking vodka at breakfast time and some of those further down the back were however and enjoying it. But we we clambered back into the air and went off and did the return journey. That's about a three hours sort of and we were again escorted some some lovely pictures of Tornadoes out on the wing and others coming in. One of the non operating. Accompanying fellows blagged his way onto our airplane on the way back. He wanted to get back faster than the gaggle who were coming home in the Candid, So he hitched a ride with us and he, all the rest were in standard sort of grow bag green, rather like our flag suit. Not a great deal of difference there. He was in a lightweight blue one, and I said that's very smart. He was sitting on the floor beside me. He was one of those who had had breakfast with vodka and he found a bottle in his bag and he was now having some more. So until he became totally incoherent, I asked him a number of questions and he was tear stained because I said, why have you got this lightweight blue suit? He said That's what we always wore when we went to Cuba. Oh, Cuba, the sun, the sand, the sea, the sex. I mean, he clearly had enjoyed his chance of the other totalitarian regime of the world, ignoring North Korea. And Cuba was obviously a haven. And that of course, if you've served in the far north of Russia for most of your serving life, first thing you have to recall is that that was not all the bad that it could be because for those serving in the far north, there was an immediate pay supplement which. Tended to take the edge off some of the hardship up there, but if your normal sort of operating area was the Bering Sea of the Iceland Pharaohs Gap and then it was your turn to go to Cuba, I sympathize with him and he was a non operating part of the crew. Actually he was not going to operate anything once he got home. I flew the last half of the of the journey up front and I was. Agreeably surprised the size of that airframe. Of course there's a gigantic amount of inertia, and like any old heavy, you turn the thing with a great yoke and you get it like that. And then you wait for the wing to catch up and do it, and when the wing starts to move to that sort of angle, just wind it off the other way. And then you're nice and stable in a turn down the slope into Kaliningrad. Easily managed, Quite extraordinary. Throttle handling and all the rest. Even with all those peculiar engines out on the wing, which I've never flown this before. I've flown piston engine only or jet only, but turboprop no and responses and so on I wasn't sure of. But it it did what it was asked to and putting it on the ground on the numbers. I have to say that the risk of being laughter score was straightforward. There must be rather more to it than simply that, because the Navy pilot next to me. Was very quick to take control of it. So I suspect the breaking and other ground handling aspects of the airplane are a bit more of a challenge because it is a big one and a heavy one. But it was a great trip. It showed the aircraft off well. It certainly achieved something I thought was never going to be achieved. And in fact since then there have been Bears going into Barksdale in Arkansas in the US and and other places. And it was a bit of a first. It was certainly a first to have. The Navy and the Airforce one together side by side in the UK and as such and filter bits, it was at a sort of high spot of Russian cooperation. So an extraordinary experience, one that I, you know, I could go on describing for a long time I think the, the impact, the whole essence of the of the flight. Was that it was so unusual and so unexpected. I I was thunderstruck. My gast was totally flabbered because I couldn't believe that when I made this to me outlandish request to have airplanes of that kind come and put themselves on the ground and be the object of full attention from the British and and the others. I I couldn't believe it would happen. But not one, but two and then a great gang of others. It was a huge triumph.
