Overview

The story of the Soviet Union's first intercontinental jet bomber which was to have become a carrier of nuclear missiles and the Soviet answer to the Boeing B-52. Much to the surprise of many, the little-known Myasischev bureau was chosen to do the job; it had been disbanded a few years earlier and reinstated solely to create such a bomber. Known to the West as the Bison, the new bomber employed many innovative features (including a bicycle landing gear) and was created within an unprecedentedly short period of just one year; Western military observers were stunned when the aircraft was formally unveiled at the 1953 May Day parade. The M-4 and the much-improved 3M remained in service for 40 years until retired and scrapped in compliance with the Start treaty. The Bison also served as the basis for the VM-T Atlant specialised cargo aircraft designed to piggy-back the Buran space shuttle and components of the Energiya launch rocket. Also described are the many projected derivatives of the M-4 designed in the 1950s, including long-range airliners.

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9781857801521

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Yefim Gordon was born in 1950 in Vilnius, Lithuania, and graduated from the Kaunas Polytechnical Institute in 1972 as an engineer/electronics designer. He has been a resident of Moscow since 1973, when, as a hobby, he started collecting photographs and books on the history of Soviet aviation. This has now developed into a major archive. Since the 1980s he has been a professional aviation journalist and writer, with over 80 books published on Soviet/Russian aviation in Russian, English, Polish and Czech, as well as close to 120 magazine features and photo reports. He is also an accomplished photographer, with countless photos published in the western press; the current edition of Jane's All the World's Aircraft features more than 50 of his photographs.

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