The Tupolev Tu-143 ''Reys'' (Flight or Trip, ; also ''Reis'', ''Rejs'') was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

unmanned

reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using Aerial photography, photography), signals ...

in service with the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

and a number of its

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

and Middle East allies during the late 1970s and 1980s. It contained a reconnaissance pod that was recovered after flight, and from which imagery was retrieved.

History

Development

The Tu-143 was introduced in 1976 and strongly resembled the

Tu-141 The Tupolev Tu-141 Strizh ("Swift"; ) is a USSR, Soviet reconnaissance aircraft, reconnaissance Unmanned aerial vehicle, drone that served with the Soviet Army during the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2014. D ...

, but was substantially scaled-down. It was a short-range (60–70 kilometer) tactical reconnaissance system and had low-level flight capability. The Tu-143 was truck-launched with

JATO JATO (acronym for jet-assisted take-off) is a type of assisted take-off for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets. The term ''JATO'' is used interchangeably with the (more specific ...

boosting, recovered by parachute, and powered by a TR3-117 turbojet with 5.8 kN (590 kgf, 1300 lbf) thrust. The initial version carried film cameras, but later versions carried a TV or radiation detection payload, with data relayed to a ground station over a datalink. Some 950 units were produced in the 1970s and 1980s.

Operation history

The Tu-143 was used by

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

in reconnaissance missions over

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

during the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, also called the Second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization ...

, as well as by Soviet forces in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...

. During the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, Ukraine appeared to use them to spot Russian air defences and as an ersatz cruise missile. On 29 June 2022, one Tu-143 carrying explosives was shot down in

Kursk Oblast Kursk Oblast (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Kursk. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, Kursk Oblast had a pop ...

. During the 2020s Israel–Hezbollah conflict Israel claimed that they destroyed a Hezbollah "DR-3 cruise missile" which they illustrated with images of the Tupolev Tu-143.

M-143 variant

A target drone version, the M-143, was introduced in the mid-1980s.

Tu-243 variant

The Tu-143 was followed into service in the late 1990s by the similar but improved "Tu-243 Reys-D", with a 25 cm (10 inch) fuselage stretch, to provide greater fuel capacity and about twice the range; it had an uprated TR3-117 engine with 6.28 kN (640 kgf, 1,410 lbf) thrust; and improved low-altitude guidance.

Tu-300 variant

Since 1995, Tupolev began promoting the further refined "Tu-300 Korshun", which resembles its predecessors but is fitted with a nose antenna dome and nose fairings for modern sensors and electronic systems. It also features a centerline pylon for a sensor pod or munitions. Financial issues forced a halt to development at the end of the 1990s, but work was resumed in 2007.

Operators

Current operators

* * * : In service as of 2016 as targets. * : Received VR-3s in 1984. *

Former operators

* : retired * : VR-3 Rejs, retired in 1995 * : Received two squadrons in 1984 * * : VR-3 in service from 1987 until the early 2000s * : VR-3 Rejs, retired * : Passed to successor states

Specifications

Tupolev TU-143 Reys: *wingspan 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in) *length 8.06 m (26 ft 5 in) *height 1.54 m (5 ft 1 in) *launch weight 1,230 kg (2,710 lb) *maximum speed 950 km/h (515 kn, 590 mph) *engine

Klimov UEC-Klimov () is a Russian manufacturer of gas turbine engines, main gearboxes and accessory drive gearboxes for transport aircraft. Originally established as ''Kirill Klimov Experimental Design Bureau'' in Saint-Petersburg under the directio ...

turbojet TR3-117 *service ceiling 5,000 m (16,400 ft) *range 200 km (110 nmi, 125 mi)

Bibliography

* *

References

This article contains material that originally came from the web article by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.

External links

Czech Tu-143/VR-3 Rejs in museum
with transport vehicle and launcher {{Tupolev aircraft Tu-0143 Unmanned aerial vehicles of the Soviet Union