Tupolev Tu-95 Tu-95M

The second aircraft of the series received NK-12M engines, more powerful and with lower specific consumption, which allowed take-off weight to rise without penalising radius of action. In tests during September and October 1957 it reached 905 km/h, a ceiling of 12,150 m and a range of 13,200 km: still short of the speed and range requirements, but close enough that deployment began in October 1957. The Tu-95M kept the 9,000 kg bomb load and the six-cannon defensive battery of the initial version, and became the baseline for the modifications that followed — the Tu-95V that dropped the thermonuclear bomb over Novaya Zemlya on 30 October 1961, the Tu-95U trainers and photo-reconnaissance Bear-Es converted from surplus airframes, and, according to Western sources, part of the Tu-95RTs maritime patrol fleet. It was the last purely free-fall Bear before the family turned towards the air-to-surface missile.