Tupolev Tu-22M: Soviet/Russian Swing-Wing Heavy Bomber

In the late 1960s, the patriarch of Soviet aircraft design, Andrey Tupolev, offered the Soviet air force a supersonic bomber to replace the 1950s-vintage Tu-22 Blinder with a less capable—but cheaper—alternative to the Sukhoi design bureau''s proposed T-4 strategic bomber. Tupolev did not offer it as an "all-new" aircraft but, instead, passed it off as a "massive upgrade" of the Blinder. Thus was born t...