I wonder what it would take to convert to a TU-114?
Well, two Tu-95s were converted to stopgap "Tu-116"s with passenger compartments—some of my sources are saying for up to 30 passengers. So, at least you could plausibly do it well enough to seat enough people for a decent concert tour.
Thanks. I saw the Tu-114 had a wider body, was wondering what other options there were. They’ve been way ahead of me on this, those Soviets.
That’s been going around, lately… ![]()
Yeah, right. Show me the CarFax.
Only flown by a little old Soviet pilot to Sunday morning Party meetings.
I’d be very curious to see if you could catch it, considering that the Bear could outrun the Swallow (to be fair to 262, it entered service 10 years prior to the Bear). Then again, you could always anticipate the flight path and pounce it as it flew past.
As for what to use this thing for, it could probably carry air freight (though bombers and freighters are designed with fairly different goals in mind, meaning conversions between the two are rare), or be used for making war movies and air shows. Or just use it to go out for a much more expensive version of the Hundred Dollar Hamburger.