Tu-160 1/72 kit

[joachim]

Today i got great news from Authentic Decals (Oleg).

They made a decal sheet for the Tu-160 1/72 kit!!!

They look great, i hope they are the same great quality as the other sheets from them (ofcourse :D )

here is a preview

[joachim]

for the people who don't know Authentic decals, her a link;

http://olimpmodels.com/catalog_AD.html

[Dave Williams]

Looks great. :D

Where will one be able to buy the decals from?

[kotey]

Ok, they will be two decal for Tu-160 in 1\72 scale on market, our decal will be ready soon (in mid of January)

Edited December 27, 2005 by kotey

[Jan]

May I have a question... what happened wit the Ukrainian Blackjacks? Coul you post some pics of them?

thanks

[joachim]

Hi Jan,

there are some left. But because of costs, i don't think they are flying anymore.

Some where given back to Russia because of dept. I don't know how much remaining now days and are capable to fly. I readed some info that say the ones where left in Ukraine are now days not flyable.

This photo comes from a museum on Poltava AB

greetings,

Joachim

[joachim]

btw

look here for more pix on Poltava museum and some more of this Tu-160

http://www.foxbat.ru/maks/poltava/poltava_01.htm

[Yuri]

Ok, they will be two decal for Tu-160 in 1\72 scale on market, our decal will be ready soon (in mid of January)

About russian/soviet decals, it would be great to have a "generic" decal sheet with the numbers in various styles and colors (as you did in the Su-15 sheet). I'd also like a sheet or two with russian/soviet 16th air army (east germany) MiG-29s.

Talking about Ukrainian Tu-160s, if I'm not wrong, Ukraine had 19 Tu-160s: 8 of them were finally sold back to Russia in 1999/2000 after years of negotiations (along with 3 Tu-95ms), 1 was preserved at the Poltava museum and all the others were scrapped (same thing happened to the Tu-95s because Ukraine had to get rid of all this stuff by 2000 to comply with START agreement).

Btw, a good western europe source for both Begemot and Authentic Decals is Hannants in the UK.

My 2 cents

Yuri

[kotey]

About russian/soviet decals, it would be great to have a "generic" decal sheet with the numbers in various styles and colors (as you did in the Su-15 sheet).

Thanks for reply, Yuri. When it possible i planning include line of board number in our decals, but writing styles board number in tha same planes is different (on Su-15 i see 5-6 types of writing same digit).

[Jan]

all the others were scrapped

What a waste!! Many museums would be happy to get them ...I remember one museum in Germany has both Tu-144 and Concorde ...it would be oh-so-cool to have Tu-160 and eventually (one day) a B-1 standing next to Concorde&Tu-144...

...why this was not possible? any idea? (it must be possible to make the airframes unable to serve as military plane, I guess...)

[Backfire]

Great news from Authentic Decals and Begemot! For those looking for retailers, I've bought Authentic Decals from both Hobbyterra and Linden Hill. Both are highly recommended.

Looking forward to my trip to Poltava next summer, and of course the museum at the airbase! :(

Keith

[MoFo]

Flightdecs has both Authentic Decals and Begemot too, IIRC, while Roll Models has Authentic Decals. Pretty much any place that sells Olimp kits SHOULD sell Authentic's stuff.

As for the Ukranian Blackjacks... I thought there were two batches of sales back to Russia, an initial batch, then some attrition replacements. Half a dozen or so were distributed around various museums/academies/bases (as gate guards), with the rest being scrapped, as mentioned. As for why they weren't distributed more widely, could be they were asking too much for them, and the museums couldn't afford the jets. Could be they're just flat out too big - it's a MASSIVE and bulky aircraft, after all. Could be they were worried about Russia getting them back, cheap, after long and fairly bitter negotiations. And it could be there were restrictions against exporting strategic nuclear bombers as part of the SALT/START treaties (even de-miled ones). I don't think there's ever been an official explanation given, but it's a bit of a moot point now - they're all long dead.

[Yuri]

Why did they scrap them? Well, it's hard to answer this question without getting involved in an endless political thread :(

Anyway I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge (most of which is based on Yefim Gordon books and Piotr Butowsky articles, correct me if I'm wrong).

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, relations between Ukraine and Russia have never been easy. Ukraine declared ownership of the military hardware on its soil and Russia cut off spares supply. For this reason most of the aircraft (and mainly the bomber force, that required a lot of support to remain airworthy) went unserviceable almost overnight (there was also and endless debate in the early 90's about who had to take the Black Sea Fleet). Russia tried to buy back the most valuable planes (Blackjacks) many times, but they weren't willing to pay the price that Ukraine asked for them (3 billion dollars according to Yefim Gordon book) so they decided to build new ones instead and got 6 of them from the Kazan factory before running out of money. Ukraine tried to sell some of the bombers for civil duties, but this didn't work, perhaps because any possible buyer knew it would have been almost impossible to use the planes without Russia's support. So as they had to get rid of them anyway by 2000, they started chopping them in 1998, maybe to force Russia to resume talks, and they finally agreed for a much lower price (285 million dollars for 8 Blackjacks and 3 Bears, the ones in the best technical conditions). Why Russia didn't buy all of them I don't know, maybe the others were in such a poor state (after ten years of open storage) that it would have been cheaper to build new ones than to repair them. Why they didn't preserve all of them for posterity in some aviation museum (according to my sources the one at Poltava is the only one not scrapped or sold to Russia) is another mystery. Perhaps because scrapping was cheaper than "demilitarizing" or because this wasn't allowed by START treaty, as also a number of american B-52s got chopped to comply with the treaty.

Btw, looking for "Tu-160" on google news I found that the russian air force is expected to take 2 new Tu-160 in 2006. Who knows if they are really new built or if they are upgraded test airframes (in all there were 6 early Blackjacks retained at Zhukovsky for tests, some, if not all, of them no more airworthy). Anyway by the end of 2006 the russian VVS should have 16 operational Tu-160s (they would have been 17 but Red 01 "Mikhail Gromov" crashed last year).

Yuri

Edited December 27, 2005 by Yuri

[Jan]

Yuri, thanks for the very interesting info ....

[kotey]

About two new Tu-160, as i know one of it - new aircraft (it was starting to built in early 90-th and now it is almost ready, second - deep upgrade one of ex-Ukranian Tu-160.

About why Russia dont buy all 19 Tu-160 from Ukraine, only 8 - maybe it is Tu-160 with opportunity easy changeed some equpment system. All ex-Ukarnian Tu-160 in Russia in first time go to Kazan for repair (10 years without technical control by Tupolev design bureau is not good for aircraft condition) and change some electronic system (Russia would't use one of mostly part of Strategic Nuclear Forces in same complektation, as in another country, which BTW ait in NATO-OTAN ).

But anyhow Russia wanted buy all Tu-160, but how said Yuri officialy Russia-Ukraine ralations always beeng not easy, it is politic. In first time Ukarain started scrapped most modern Tu-160 (with less 100 hours of flight resource) in November 1998, second start scrapped in early 1999 - maybe it time of choose which Tu-160 was flight in Russia it was not 19 Tu-160 in Priluki.

Edited December 28, 2005 by kotey

[joachim]

;) there is also a great new decal-sheet comming from Authentic-decals. :D

One from the Su-24MR!

If i can and may i will show you more, but they look gooooood

[Oleg_Odessa]

Looks great. :wacko:

Where will one be able to buy the decals from?

Hi, Dave and ALL!

Decals are already sent in shops.

Their will possible buy in Hobbyterra January 4-5.

In the Hannants, Roll Models and other, their will possible buy in the middle of january.

there is also a great new decal-sheet comming from Authentic-decals.

One from the Su-24MR!

If i can and may i will show you more, but they look gooooood

No, Martin, NO!

I am very superstitious! :lol:

Oleg.