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Tu-20
For a long time, the iconic Tupolev Tu-95 (Russian: Туполев Ту-95; NATO reporting name: “Bear”) was known to US/NATO intelligence as the Tu-20. While this was the original Soviet Air Force designation for the aircraft, by the time it was being supplied to operational units it was already better known under the Tu-95 designation used internally by Tupolev, and the Tu-20 designation quickly fell out of use in the USSR. Since the Tu-20 designation was used on many documents acquired by US intelligence agents, the name continued to be used outside the Soviet Union.
Its distinctive swept-back wings are set at an angle of 35°.
Propeller blades moving faster than the speed of sound
The aircraft has four Kuznetsov NK-12 engines with contra-rotating propellers. It is the only propeller-powered strategic bomber still in operational use today. The Tu-95 is one of the loudest military aircraft, particularly because the tips of the propeller blades move faster than the speed of sound.
Alan Buttery, former FAA Air Traffic Controller (ATC), recalls on Quora;
‘In the early 60’s, I was an FAA controller in San Juan center. The FAA had just started a program of using any available military radars to perform flight following because they did not have any of their own at that time. (This followed a couple of mid-air collisions over the Grand Canyon and New York City.) We worked with the Puerto Rico National Guard at Dorado.
DC-8 pilot reporting hearing a Tu-95 passing by
‘One day I had an Eastern Airlines DC-8 inbound from NY, and a Russian Tu-95 crossing North of San Juan, enroute to Havana. The Bear was a thousand feet above the DC-8. Murphy’s law dictated that the Bear and the DC-8 would be exactly over the same place at the same time. I issued traffic to the Eastern and he said he was looking. After they passed, I asked him if he saw the Bear. His reply was “I not only saw him, I HEARD him!’
Photo credit: San Diego Air and Space Museum and Crown Copyright
