Tupolev Tu-95 Tu-95KM

The Tu-95KM was the step between the first Bear-B missile carriers and the Bear-Gs of the 1970s. Through the 1960s a number of Tu-95K and Tu-95KD bombers received new radio-engineering and navigation equipment and, with it, the Tu-95KM designation; some Western sources argue these were not conversions at all but new-build aircraft, and twenty-three examples are quoted as completed.

In the air the Bear-C looked much like a late Tu-95KD, with the nose refuelling probe and the large radome of the Kh-20 missile guidance system. What gave it away were two pairs of reconnaissance radomes fitted on opposite sides of the rear fuselage: the Tu-95KM did not only carry the missile, it also gathered electronic intelligence on the same sorties — a dual role that suited the Soviet habit of wringing every use out of an available airframe.

One aircraft played an unusual part in the military space programme, serving as the mothership that launched the Mikoyan 105.11 orbital demonstrator of the Spiral project. Most of the fleet, however, was rebuilt to Bear-G configuration with Kh-22 missiles, and none is believed to survive in its original form.