Bull and Boot - Tu-4 Bull with Tu-91 Boot attached - Soviet engine testbed

[Flankerman]

I'm calling it finished.... it's an Academy B-29 painted as a Tu-4 Bull with a Modelsvit Tu-91 Boot attached as an engine testbed - it really did exist - as shown in this photo....



A lot of hacking, filling and sanding later......



Because I used Milliput to form the rear end of the cut-down Tu-91 fuselage, it is very tail heavy - so I had to fit a support prop under the Tu-4 tail.







I reckon if they removed the turboprop engine and put a few seats in the Tu-91, they could have made a neat passenger version of the Tu-4

My attempt at repicating the photos of the real thing......









Comments welcome - more photos of the build are here

I'm going for a lie down in a dark room now.....

Ken

[BritJet]

Well done Ken, there's not going to be many of those around! All the hard work has certainly paid off.

Enjoy the lie down.....

Steve

[jckspratt1]

Just had a look at your 'Flankers' site' page on this. What an amazing job - and daring (and imaginative) choice of subject.

It helps that it came out beautifully.

[Stosh65]

That will be very unique. Nice job.

[Max Headroom]

Wonderful result of a quite nutty prototype.

Trevor

[snapper_city]

Wow, that's very different.

[adrianm2]

That`s brilliant Kent.

Enlightening us once again.

Adrian

[stevej60]

That,s something you don't see everyday! Outstanding work Ken,and a flawless conversion too

[Duncan B]

A very nice model of an interesting subject, as others have said you won't see many of these around.

I can't help wondering why the Russians went to the trouble of fitting the complete Tu-91 forward airframe including glazing when they just wanted to test the engine!

Duncan B

[Spitfire31]

Superb modelling and a pedagogic tour-de-force!

The inteventiveness of the Russians never fails to astound…

Kind regards,

Joachim

[Flankerman]

A very nice model of an interesting subject, as others have said you won't see many of these around.

I can't help wondering why the Russians went to the trouble of fitting the complete Tu-91 forward airframe including glazing when they just wanted to test the engine!

Duncan B

My thoughts exactly.

There are few details about it - in fact it was the publication of Yefim Gordon's / Schiffer hardback book that brought it to my attention.

He had previously mentioned it in his Red Star Tu-4 softback, but only published three actual photos in the Schiffer book.

There are so many questions that it raises -

how many flights were made? -

how did the Tu-4 handle that assymetric thrust? -

was the Tu-91 cockpit fully fitted out? -

if so was it manned for the flights?? -

if not - how was the Tu-91's TV-2M turboprop controlled?

All fascinating stuff.

Ken

[batcode]

very strange looking bird!!! nice work looks great and nice to see something different...

[Martian]

I'm well impressed with that build!

Martin

[F4u]

Now that is different and impressive work.

Guy

[Snitok1983]

So neat! And rare! BTW, great work, Sir

[Val]

Superb work!

[TonyTiger91]

Wow! That looks extremely impressive. Absolutely fascinating choice of subject and very nicely made. Well done

[moaning dolphin]

Very well finished, one heck of a weird beast but you have caught the lines very well. Well done indeed!

Bob

[Dave N]

Flawless execution of a unique subject- very well done!

[Viking]

Totally love this! Fascinating on many levels as a subject and beautifully executed as a model.

Cheers

John

[Mike DeTorrice]

Wonderful job on this rare machine ! Certainly a fascinating engine test-bed aircraft.

Mike

[Learstang]

Now there's one you don't see every day, Ken! I doubt at your local IPMS show someone's going to walk by the table muttering 'Not another one...'. Great job!

Regards,

Jason

[Housesparrow]

I've modeled the Tu-95KM in 3D, so I am familiar with the Tu-4 story, though this weird twist is new to me.