Carpet bomber

A civilian supersonic plane based on the Tu-160 strategic missile carrier, which was called by Vladimir Putin, will cost about 150 million euros and can only find demand for a business jet for billionaires. It is reported by Kommersant.

Putin expressed the idea to develop a passenger version of the Tu-160 when visiting the Kazan Aviation Plant on Thursday. "The Tu -144 Why got out of production - the ticket had to correspond to some average earnings in the country. And now the situation is different. Now large companies have appeared that could use this aircraft," the president said.

For his part, the head of the United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar told Putin that the corporation already has a project of a supersonic civil liner.

Sources of Kommersant said that interest in remaking strategic bombers in civilian aircraft arose among foreign customers since the mid-2000s. However, at that time the production of new aircraft was discontinued, and the military refused to withdraw from the “nuclear triad” from the “nuclear triad”.

However, in 2015, it was decided to revive the Tu-160 issue at KAZ. After that, a number of official letters from potential buyers were received at the United Aircraft Building Corporation and Rosoboronexport. According to the deputy head of PJSC Tupolev Valery Solozobov, among them were the Arab Sheikh, a millionaire from Australia and "far from a poor resident of Greece." However, these requests are not satisfied. “To make a passenger plane from the Tu -160 is a very expensive pleasure, it is much cheaper to re -make such a plane without any Tu -160,” Solozobov said.

The fact is that in the export version of the aircraft there should not be components that fall under secrecy. These include not only Avionics and control systems, but even the Tu-160 wing device.

The source of the publication in the aviation industry believes that, depending on the layout, the plane will cost the customer about 140-150 million euros. However, the operation of supersonic Tu-144 and Concorde showed that fuel costs and maintenance overlap high-speed advantages. “Only a few companies in the world can afford to support themselves and, more importantly, to constantly exploit at least a couple of such aircraft,” the source said. “It will be more about a private person or even a group of persons from friendly countries that already have everything in life and which will not stand behind the price.”

However, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin believes that the production capacities “quite allowed to create a passenger version of the Tu-160, not being distracted from the order of the Ministry of Defense.” At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that the passenger version of the supersonic aircraft will not be produced massively. “But in Russia and abroad there are rich and super -entered people who are ready to pay a lot of money to save a lot of time,” Rogozin said.

In the far, two missile carriers were completed in varying degrees of readiness that had preserved from the 90s of the Tu-160 aircraft. On Thursday, another new aircraft called Peter Deinekin, modernized before the Tu-160M ​​version, made a demonstration flight in the presence of Putin, Interfax reported .

On the same day, Thursday, the Ministry of Defense and PJSC Tupolev signed a state contract for the supply of 10 Tu-160M ​​worth 15 billion rubles each. It is argued that the effectiveness of the new modification of the strategic missile carrier will be increased by 60 percent compared to the base aircraft. "The Tu -160M ​​will be equipped with a new weapon system that allows you to use promising cruise missiles and bomb weapons. A radio electronic and aviation equipment will be subjected to complete modernization," the Ministry of Defense said .

In parallel, Tupolev is working on the creation of prototypes Tu -160M2 - the latest modification of a strategic missile carrier. It was noted that outwardly this aircraft will not differ from the basic Tu-160, but its combat capabilities will increase significantly, including by expanding the weapons spectrum.