Air International 1995-11
B.Gunston, Y.Gordon - The Extinct Bison (2)
Looking up at an early 3M, Red 31, with Dobrynin engines. The lack of dihedral on the tailplane is not obvious, but the straight trailing edge of the wing is. These aircraft were bigger and heavier than the M-4. 47 being built.
An unusual view (except possibly to a fighter pilot) of Red 57, a probed 3M bomber. It is almost certainly a 3MS-1, but the positioning of the dorsal ARKS antennae is unusual. A later photograph shows it as a 3MD.
Three view drawing of the Myasishchyev 3MD with nose and tail details of the M-4, nose detail of the 3M and side view of the VM-T.
Стратегический бомбардировщик М-4 в Жуковском.
Seemingly identical to the M-3, this M-4, one of 33 production aircraft, was photographed on Myasishchyev's apron at Zhukovsky in 1994. C/n 6303134, Red 61, has a glazed nose, kinked wing leading edge, dihedral tailplane and white rudder and undersurfaces. Note the huge gantry behind which is used for mounting outsize loads on the back of the VM-T Atlant variant of the Bison.
Three of the first Project 25 bombers, this time designated M-4 by the Air Force, flying over Tushino in June 1956.
In this air-to-air photograph of the sole M-4A, the censor has altered the c/n from 1518 to 4300. The airframe was basically an M-4, the only glazed-nosed example with a probe.
A notice in front of this M-4 warns that the aircraft has electric power supplied. Technicians are working above the engines and the tail turret. Ahead of the windscreen is a passive warning receiver which, in the 3M, was replaced by two on the sides behind the cockpit and on tankers was removed altogether.
The nose undercarriage pushes the sole prototype of the maritime-attack version (previously the third prototype M-4) off the Zhukovsky runway in 1956. The bomb bay was modified to carry four anti-ship (eg 45-36AN) torpedoes.
Today the only surviving 3MD is Red 30, slowly deteriorating in the open at the Monino museum, Moscow.
Probably photographed at Engels, these huge conventional bombs (though smaller than the FAB-9000) are about to be loaded aboard a 3MD. The winching mechanism was in the aircraft.
Red 57, seen before as a 3MS-1, was photographed in 1964 on a mission over the Mediterranean after being modified as a 3MD, escorted by an F-4J of the Sixth Fleet.