Continuing his development of jet bombers, the next
Tupolev aircraft was the light twin-engined Tu-82,
which was the first Soviet bomber to feature swept
wings.
Sergei Yeger continued as project leader, and he
incorporated a wing with a sweep of 35°; while the
Tu-14 range had already featured a swept-back
horizontal tailplane, the Tu-82 also had the fin swept
at an angle of 40°. Engines were two Nene derivative
VK-1s of 2,740kg.
The Tu-82 was provisionally given the designation
Tu-22 by the VVS. This was not used for long,
although there are photographs available to show that
it was painted on the aircraft for a while; later the
Tu-22 designation would be used again (and again).
Conceived as a test and development aircraft for the
purpose of determining the flight qualities of large
swept-wing aircraft, only the single example
constructed at the design works was built.
Construction began at the end of 1947, and the aircraft
was completed at the beginning of 1949. It made its
first flight from Zhukovski on 24 March.
Its performance was good. Maximum speed was
established to be 934km/h, service ceiling was
an excellent 14,000m, and range
2,750km. A relatively small aircraft, the
Tu-82 had an empty weight of just 9,526kg,
compared to the more than 14,000kg of the three-engine jets of the family. Its normal take-off
weight was 13,000kg, but it
had little difficulty in performance when this was
increased to 18,000kg. A production version of
the Tu-82 was planned, the slightly bigger Tu-86,
but the programme was cancelled.
