Quoted as Tupolev 180
Guys is this a photoshop pic of a blackjack or really exists?
My guess is it’s a fake. If you look closely you can see where the tail would be, its a slightly different shade than the areas around it.
Well, it certainly looks nothing like a Blackjack, which, if anything, looks a bit like a B-1 on steroids. I’d say that’s a fake. As far as I know from the flood of Soviet history we’ve gotten since 1990, they didn’t do a lot with flying wing research. After all, we got all the German techs and engineers on the Horton flying wing projects, etc. Plus, the Germans originally got their ideas from Jack Northrups work with tailless designs that flew in the 1930s, one of which, proudly, flies today.
I personally think that Black & White photos of modern Russian aircraft are really unjustified. It’s understandable if it’s a 50’s a 60’s and perhaps a 70’s plane, but there’s no reason why anyone, call it an official source, an aircraft enthusiast or a “spy” if you will would supply a black & white photo today when it’s easier and more logic to shoot a color photo. For this reason I believe that photo is fake, however, it looks like an interesting modeling subject, and I also think that if there’s a new Russian Strategic Bomber in development, it looks definitely cooler than that. I agree with Sharkskin, Flying wings have never been Russian designers ‘forte’. As an additional note: British also were big explorers of Flying Wing Technology and did apply it in the Avro Vulcan a real operative tailess strategic bomber long before the B-2.