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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1858.PDF
21 August 1959 43 These "Flight" photograph*, taken at Le Bourget, show the mighty engines and propellers, left, and the nose undercarriage, below. Just above the radome are four-barrel cartridge dischargers, signalling lamp and temperature sensers Russia's Giant Turboprop Comes West Tu-114 ROSSIYA IN many ways the crowning event of the Paris Show was thearrival on the last Friday of the mighty Tu-114 Rossiya,SSSR L-5611. The giant first came droning over at midday, high up in the heat haze—a swept-wing monster, obviouslyextremely powerful, although by no means noisy. Its final approach speed was difficult to judge because of itsunusual size, but I would say it was approximately the. same as that of a Boeing 707. At a moderate angle of attack it toucheddown on the beginning of the northerly runway at Le Bourget, droned along the gentle down-slope, and soon came to a stop.Some minutes later it snarled its ponderous way up to the control tower and stopped, looming over the buildings and dwarfingeverything about it. It looked every bit a monster, certainly the biggest airframe in captivity this side of the Atlantic. Apart from sheer size, the first point of interest was that thefront and rear units of each contraprop rotated independently, and one propeller stopped several seconds before its partner.Later I was able to go up to them and turn them easily by hand, separately or both together. The blade-tips were at about chestlevel and the blades themselves very flexible. Most were painted matt black on both faces, but the rear faces of the outboard pairshad recently been buffed with a hand grinder, so that they were polished and clearly showed the long straight passes of the buffinghead. (Later, pictures from New York—visited by the Tu-114 after a brief return to Moscow—indicated that all the rear faceshad been so polished, possibly to remove fatigue-inducing scratches.) Conventional airline stairs which were brought up and fullyelevated got nowhere near the passenger doors. A narrow 10ft ladder, let down by the crew from the forward door, just madecontact; and down this stairway from heaven, after a time, came thirty or forty Russians, including Mrs. Tupolev (her husbandwas already in Paris). The Russian ground crew, in brown track suits, extracted from the rear freighthold an enormous tow-barwhich they wheeled up to the mighty nose-gear, but there was no tractor at Le Bourget capable of pulling it, and a good deal ofrubber was expended in unsuccessful attempts. The rumour was that they later borrowed one of the very big combined tractorand ground-power trucks from the U.S.AJ7. The best way to describe the Tu-114 is to deal separately withpowerplants, undercarriage, airframe, controls, equipment and cabin interior.I heard it reported in Paris that Mr. Tupolev stated that, although the power of the engines had not been released it waswell below the 12,000 h.p. which was generally believed. Some 8,000 to 9,000 h.p. was nearer the mark. On superficial inspectionseveral points immediately emerged. Firstly, the propeller-hub fairing extended at least as far into the interior of the cowlingas it protruded from it. The actual engine intake could be seen several feet inside the cowling. Secondly, the big bifurcated jet-pipes vented the exhaust gases close alongside the nacelles, and the aluminium-alloy heat shields which covered a considerablearea aft showed marked signs of heat-stress and buckling. Heat had also considerably affected neighbouring unprotected areas,particularly on the mainwheel fairings. Finally, the cowlings themselves were made in two major portions, divided where afirewall might be located, and were apparently not removable. From the intake lip to just aft of the oil-cooler intake therewere only small access panels and no sign of a structural break. It would appear that this portion could only be removed by first taking off the propellers. Level with the body of the oil-coolersthere were four big, toggle-fastened doors, which could be hinged open to reveal the whole circumference of the engine at what waspresumably the level of the accessories. Aft again, the cowling was not removable. Each engine was, in fact, mounted on some-thing like a pylon extending between the bifurcated jet-pipes. This explains why the outboard engines have bifurcated ducts.There was no obvious indication of the method of starting the engines, and by noon on the day following the show this hadnot been attempted. It has been reported that engine-overhaul life is at present 250 hr. There are several possibilities in the gearing and control of thepropellers. It has been reported that the Type NK-012 is a single-shaft engine, and the free-wheeling, apparently independentrotation on the ground seemed to indicate that some overrunning device is incorporated to prevent negative torque. When stopped,the propellers were in a very fine pitch setting. In the static park, the Russian ground crew lashed the pairs of propellers togetherwith light bindings, but did not arrange the four pairs symmetric- ally. Thick ice-shields were riveted round the whole fuselagein the plane of the inboard propellers. De-icing boots were attached along about half the span of each blade. No other de-icingprovisions were immediately apparent on either spinners or main intakes. The main undercarriage units each carried a four-wheel bogie,with tyres about 5ft in diameter, suspended on a single shock strut of nearly 12in diameter. Internal expanding brakes withextensive cooling fins were supplied with hydraulic pressure by two rigid pipes of exceptionally large bore running down eachleg. An electric device on one wheel rim, served by a rather tattered cable, appeared to control a non-skid system on one wheel
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