This is Tupolev Tu-22, the Soviet Union’s first supersonic bomber which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads. It was first unveiled to the public on July 9 1961 in an airshow outside of Moscow.
Among the soviets few western representatives were also invited to this airshow to observe Soviet Union’s new fleet of planes.
And when a fleet of these new supersonic bombers passed by these spectators they were very surprised and could not believe the capabilities of these bombers which resembled very close capabilities to American B-58 Hustler bomber.
In the beginning there were multiple nicknames given to this supersonic bomber by the west for example, bull shot, the beauty, and the last one blinder which stuck for years to come.
From the beginning the Tu-22 blinder had many problems, with serviceability and in flight issues causing crashes, therefore many modifications were made to the existing models as well as to the newer ones. Other problems included the cockpit panels which would block the runway view during takeoffs and landing, and slow landing speed which would cause crashes. These issues made the blinder very difficult plane to operate, and not every pilot was able to operate it, hence around 16 of the best pilots from soviet air force were choose to pilot these planes. But even these pilots were used to having a copilot with them who would assist them with the avionics and different operations during the flight.
But the blinder was a single seater aircraft so these pilots found it difficult to understand and operate these planes alone, and many crashes occurred due to these pilots being confused to understand and operate different panels of this aircraft.
Alongside many other problems one major issue was the oxygen system of the aircraft. The oxygen to the cabin was provided through a bleed air system which ran on engines compressors. The problem was, when the Blinder flew to the sky, the air become hot and so it had to be cooled down before sending it to the pilot. The engineers devised a solution with a mixture of 60% distilled water and 40% vodka. And so the Blinder was also nicknamed the booze carrier.
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