[Milsurplus] Re: Russian "B-29"...

[Mike Morrow]

Ken wrote:

>The one they copied also had a large patch on one side, low down
>near the front on the left side which covered some battle damage.

There's been a considerable amount of debate over how many such reports are=
 mythological.  With three B-29s for the Soviet engineers to examine, it wo=
uld have been unlikely for battle-damage repairs on one aircraft to have be=
en incorporated as a design feature into the Soviet version (the Tu-4, NATO=
-designated "Bull").

I wonder about how much of the B-29 avionics was duplicated.   The B-29 wou=
ld certainly have had the AN/ARN-5/RC-103/RC-193 instrument landing system,=
 but did the Soviets have any corresponding ground equipment to make it wor=
th the effort to duplicate?  There was also a large amount of electronic co=
untermeasures equipment and bombardment and fire control electronics which =
might have been worth duplicating.  I also wonder whether they duplicated t=
he AN/ARC-8 (ART-13, BC-348).  Some time ago I saw a photo of the cockpit o=
f a surviving Tu-4.  On the right side was a box that very clearly was an a=
lmost exact duplicate of the C-87/ART-13 control box.  That leads me to thi=
nk that they likely copied closely the entire AN/ARC-8.  It would seem that=
 the B-29's AN/ARC-3 VHF sets would have been worth duplicating.  Maybe the=
re was a C-118/ARC-3 duplicate in the photo that escaped my notice.  I'd su=
re like to get a chance to crawl around in that Russian museum's Tu-4.  Too=
 bad the USAF Museum at Dayton doesn't have some of these in its collection=
.

73,
Mike / KK5F