Tu-160M with new engines completes factory trials.

The United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said it had handed over the first upgraded Tu-160M strategic bomber with new NK-32 engines of the 02 series for preliminary trials.

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The Tu-160M strategic bomber is powered by new NK-32 engines of 02 series (NK-32-02) and has upgraded onboard equipment. It successfully passed factory trials and will now begin preliminary trials  (Picture source: UAC Russia)

“The aircraft will continue trials at the Tupolev test base in Zhukovsky near Moscow. The Tu-160M flew from Kazan Aircraft Plant. Merited test pilot Anri Naskidyants piloted the bomber. The flight went normally and the equipment operated without remarks,” it said.

The Tu-160M strategic bomber is powered by new NK-32 engines of 02 series (NK-32-02) and has upgraded onboard equipment. It successfully passed factory trials and will now begin preliminary trials.

UAC photos show it is the Igor Sikorsky aircraft. Aviation experts A.M. Zatuchny, V. G. Rigmant and P. N. Sineoky write in the Tu-160 Strategic Bomber book that the aircraft was produced in Kazan on February 14, 1989 with serial number 405 and factory number 83804352. It was initially deployed in Priluki in Chernigov region in Soviet Ukraine and operated in the 184th air regiment of heavy bombers. The aircraft has 22 red number.

In late 1999, Russia received several Tu-160 and Tu-95MS bombers from Ukraine as payment for gas debts. The aircraft flew to the Russian airbase in Engels and joined the 121st regiment of heavy bombers.

Open sources said the mentioned Tu-160 was the sixth bomber to fly to Russia in late 1999. In 2012, it obtained the registration number RF-94103 and was named after Igor Sikorsky. Since 2016, it has been upgraded in Kazan.

The first Tu-160M was created in the framework of a large-scale modernization program fulfilled by the Tupolev Company. The upgraded bomber with NK-32-02 engines made the maiden flight in November 2020 in Kazan.

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