The Sukhoi T-4, or "Aircraft 100", or "Project 100", or "Sotka" was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

high-speed

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

, anti-ship and

strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...

aircraft that did not proceed beyond the

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...

stage. It is sometimes called the Su-100.

Design and development

In 1963, the Soviet government held a request for proposal among the aircraft design bureaus, with the aim of developing an aircraft analogous to the

North American XB-70 Valkyrie The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North Ame ...

. The Sukhoi design, with its high cruise speed of was favored over the designs submitted by

Yakovlev The JSC A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau (russian: ОАО Опытно-конструкторское бюро им. А.С. Яковлева) is a Russian aircraft designer and manufacturer (design office prefix Yak). Its head office is in Aeroport ...

and

Tupolev Tupolev (russian: Ту́полев, ), officially Joint Stock Company Tupolev, is a Russian aerospace and defence company headquartered in Basmanny District, Moscow. Tupolev is successor to the Soviet Tupolev Design Bureau ( OKB-156, design off ...

and after a preliminary design review in June 1964, the building of a prototype was authorized. Development of the T-4 required massive research efforts to develop the technologies necessary, including the manufacturing technologies to machine and weld the materials necessary to withstand sustained Mach 3 flight. Nearly 600 patents or inventions are attributed to the program.T-4 on Sukhoi Company website
/ref> The first flying prototype was finally completed in the autumn of 1971. Work continued on an additional three airframes (one for static testing) through 1975. In 1974, the Ministry of Aviation Industry ordered work suspended on the T-4 project, which was officially scrapped on 19 December 1975. The aircraft's droop nose lowered to provide visibility during takeoff and landing. A

periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

was used for forward viewing when the nose was retracted, and could be employed at speeds of up to . Drogue parachutes were used in addition to conventional wheel brakes.

Operational history

The first T-4, designated "101", first flew on 22August 1972. The test pilot was Vladimir Ilyushin, son of famed aircraft designer Sergei Ilyushin, and navigator Nikolai Alfyorov. Testing continued to 19January 1974. The T-4 flew only ten times for a total of 10 hours and 20 minutes..

Aircraft on display

One T-4 survives. Aircraft "101" is on display at the

Central Air Force Museum The Central Air Force Museum (russian: Центральный музей Военно-воздушных сил РФ) is an aviation museum in Monino, Moscow Oblast, Russia. A branch of the Central Armed Forces Museum, it is one of the world's la ...

Monino Monino (russian: Мо́нино) is an urban locality (a work settlement) in Shchyolkovsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of Moscow. Population: History Monino was founded in the Muninskaya Wasteland (russian: Мунинс ...

near

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. The serial numbers of the prototypes were "101" to "106". Only "101" and "102" were built, while other additional prototypes "103" and "104" were under construction, and "105" and "106" only existed on draft charts. Only the "101" completed all the test flights and flew the last test flight before the project was canceled on 22 January 1974. The rest of the prototypes were scrapped.

Specifications

Gallery

File:T4.png, T-4

References

External links

Sukhoi T-4 "Sotka" at the Russian Air Force Museum

Sukhoi Company website
{{Sukhoi aircraft T-04 Canard aircraft Delta-wing aircraft 1970s Soviet bomber aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of the Soviet Union Quadjets Aircraft first flown in 1972