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he Soviet Navy has again stumped jjOrne Western intelligence analysts. The v,ets appear to be developing a new y'lg-boat aircraft. This follows a 25- ear hiatus in Soviet development of this Vpe of aircraft.
l Be new flying boat—tagged TAG-D ^ Western intelligence—is purported to I a tw>n-turbofan aircraft and may be as f^rge as the well-known Tu-20 Bear-D j tl)nnaissance aircraft. The new aircraft reported to have a large, shoulder- te(jUnted wing with moderate sweep, fite, vvnh high-lift devices such as leading- e Se slats or flaps and slotted trailing- flaps. The engine nacelles are morskoy or “naval.” The code names are assigned by U. S./NATO intelligence, with M-names [Mallow, Mail, May] indicating miscellaneous types; the Bear-F patrol/ASW aircraft retains the B-series name assigned to bombers.)
While the 11-38 resembles the U. S. Navy-Lockheed P-3 Orion and was similarly developed from a commercial aircraft, it was produced in relatively small numbers—about 100 were built. The Soviet aircraft seems to be less effective in ASW than the P-3 and other Western maritime patrol aircraft.
A third Soviet ASW aircraft now in service has been more successful. It is the
antiship, and minelaying operations. Setting a world flying boat record of 566.7 miles per hour in 1961. the aircraft bore a superficial resemblance to the much larger U. S. Navy-Martin P6M Seamaster flying boat. The U. S. aircraft, however, was to have been primarily an aerial minelayer, although it may have eventu-
Table 1 TAG-D Characteristics
Weight Empty | Weight Loaded | Span | Length | Engines* |
165,000 lb | 356,000 lb | 167 ft | 156 ft | 4 TP |
52,900 lb | 88,200 lb | 82 ft | 108 ft | 2 TJ |
39,680 lb | 64,925 lb | 97'/2 ft | 99 ft | 2 TP |
49,218 lb | 65,986 lb | 1 181/6 ft | 91 ft | 2 R |
54,685 lb | 147,609 lb | 102'/2 ft | 134‘A ft | 4 TP |
176,370 lb | 330,693 lb | 164 ft | 164 ft | 2 TF |
__
^ - reciprocating; TP = turboprop; TJ = turbojet; TF = turbofan. **Estimated.
Tu-20 Be-io Be-12 SP-5B yP6M-l TAG-D**
twin m 1967-68- and the M‘12 Mail> a i
0ne IP^B] designation and a military
ally have
lit1°Unted on the fuselage shoulders, in asWlth the wing trailing edges. The tail Q^rnbly is said to resemble the 11-76 -p did transport, having a large, high, d isfiguration with a magnetic anomaly lotion (MAD) “stinger” protruding, atit' 6 ^AD identifies the TAG-D as an I '^marine aircraft. It is possibly the larn aWa’ted successor to two Soviet 0( 'Based maritime patrol/ASW aircraft ^ Questionable effectiveness—the 11-38 flew'-3 Pour~turboprop aircraft that first
"^utboprop flying boat that first flew T. (Soviet military aircraft gener- rea "ve two designations, a design bu-
Sp These were Be-10 and M-10, re- ^‘ively, for the Mallow, and Be-12 ™l-12 for the Mail; the M indicates
Tu-142 Bear-F, the ASW version of the indefatigable Bear bomber. This large aircraft continues to be built long after the M-12 and 11-38 production lines were closed down. The Bear-F entered service in 1970, based on a design that first flew in 1954.1 Thus, a new land-based ASW aircraft has been anticipated for some time. The surprise is that the aircraft is a flying boat, a type the U. S. Navy abandoned with retirement of the last Martin SP-5B Marlin two decades ago.
The last Soviet flying boat design known to have reached the flight test stage was the M-10 Mallow, a multimission aircraft developed by the Beriev design bureau, formerly headed by G. M. Beriev, who died in 1979. The M-10 was a swept-wing, twin-turbojet aircraft that the Soviets said was suitable for ASW.
ally been used as a nuclear-strike aircraft. Its design called for a 30,000-pound payload of mines, photographic equipment, or “special stores,” a 1950s euphemism for nuclear weapons. The maximum speed was to be 645 miles per hour at 5,000 feet.
Neither of these high-speed Hying boats progressed beyond the preproduction stage. Four preproduction M-10 Mallow Hying boats were publicly displayed in 1961. Although there was no indication that they carried radai or MAD equipment, tail warning radar and a tail gun position were evident on the planes.
119
Ceedings / September 1989
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No further Soviet production of the M-10 was observed. (Eleven U. S. P6M aircraft flew, but that project was terminated in August 1959 to help fund the start-up of the Polaris submarine program. The cancellation ended seaplane development in the United States, and the Martin Company turned from aircraft to missile programs.)
After cancellation of their turbojet flying boat projects, both the U. S. and Soviet navies continued to operate patrol and ASW flying boats. The Soviet M-12 Mail continues in service today. As many as 200 may have been delivered to the Soviet Navy from about 1964, with the aircraft employed as a patrol/ASW and search-and-rescue aircraft. The Soviet Navy may still fly about 75.
The U. S. Navy operated the SP-5B (formerly P5M-2) version of the Marlin flying boat until November 1967. It had twin reciprocating engines, although one aircraft, the prototype for a planned update of the aircraft that was never carried out, was also fitted with a single J60 turbojet engine in the tail. Because of the great success of the land-based P-3 Orion and the high costs of developing a follow-on flying boat and supporting seaplane tenders, the Marlin was not replaced.
Limited interest in flying boats has continued in the United States. There have been a variety of proposals for very large flying boats, a catamaran-hull seaplane (possibly employed to replenish ballistic-missile submarines), a seaplane version of the C-130 Hercules transport, a “tilt-float” flying boat configuration to provide a stable ASW platform in heavy seas, and even a hermaphrodite submarine-seaplane.2
Regardless of such interest, from termination of the Soviet Be-10 program in the early 1960s until the TAG-D project, only two military flying boats have been developed, and neither by the superpowers. These were the Japanese PS-l/US-1 Shin Meiwa and the Chinese Shuihong-5 or SH-5.
The Japanese Shin Meiwa, which first took to the air in 1967, is a twin-turboprop flying boat. The Japanese Navy took delivery of 23 PS-1 patrol/ASW variants. The search-and-rescue variant, designated the US-1, continues in production at a slow rate. (Only the US-1 variant remains in naval service.)
Subsequently, in the mid-1980s the Chinese Navy revealed a large, four- turboprop flying boat, apparently intended primarily for the patrol/ASW and antishipping roles. This large aircraft, the Shuihong-5, which first flew in 1976 according to Chinese sources, has been in
production since 1984.
While both the Shin Meiwa and the Shuihong, in succession, have been re ferred to by aviation observers as the epj taph for the flying boat, the TAG-D >n“' cates that the concept may be alive an well. The design bureau that produce the TAG-D is not publicly known; it js probably not the Beriev OKB, which >s probably no longer in operation. The des ignation TAG-D, however, indicates the location where the prototype is believe to have been observed, Taganrog, on tn Sea of Azov, which was the location 0 the Beriev OKB. The TAG-D’s tail configuration and other features, however indicate that it may be a product of 1 Ilyushin OKB, which, for the past fe years, has concentrated on design^® cargo-transport aircraft, including n11 tary variants for command-and-contr° ■ tanker, and airborne-early-warning rot®; _ (The 11-38 May was also an Ilyushin product.) Thus, the TAG-D may & joint effort of Beriev-Ilyushin, Ilyushin could be operating the Bene
facility‘ . r the
The estimated characteristics oi
TAG-D are shown in Table 1. The p0"1'
plant of two Lotarev D-18T turbofan cn
gines, each with 51,588 pounds of sta11^
thrust, is expected to produce a maximu
speed of up to 600 miles per hour (MaC
0.9) with a mission profile of three hou^
on station at a range of 1,500 miles fr°
base. Total mission endurance is e
pected to be ten hours. ASW torpedo^
depth bombs, and mines are expected
be carried, with MAD, sonobuoys, rad •
and electron surveillance employed
submarine detection. Antiship missi •
would also be carried. n
The development of the TAG-D agal.
demonstrates the breadth of Soviet tn1
tary aircraft development. The TAu
appears just as the Soviets are adapt"1®
several land-based aircraft to opef
from their new Tbilisi-class aircraft cadV ers, the Yak-41 vertical/short takeoff aa landing aircraft is in development forc . rier operation, and the Tu-160 Black)2 ^ strategic aircraft is about to enter servi ^ These projects, coupled with sever lesser aircraft known to be in advanc ^ development and on-going updates o variety of existing military and ciyn1 aircraft, demonstrate an active avia11 ^ industry. But the current development a new flying boat indicates that nav programs continue to receive high Prl ity in the Soviet Union.
‘“The Ubiquitous ‘Bear’” Proceedings, DccC 1985, pp. 54-59. ^
2Thomas P. Faulconer, “If You’ve Got It, FLA It,” Proceedings, April 1985, pp. 135-139.
120
Proceedings / September