Kuznetsov NK-12 soviet turboprop, the most powerful engine of its type ever build, having a power output of 11,033 Kw, which drives huge eight-bladed (four per propeller) contra-rotating propellers 5.6 m (18 ft 4.5in) in diameter.
It’s best known application it’s the Tu-95 bomber series and her derivatives.
noise to no end
ReplyDeleteGromit, the props might be feathered. A lot of turboprop engines
Deletecan act as thrust reversers do in a turbofan engine.
Bogside my old friend, the counter rotating props act sort of
like a compressor in a turbofan engine. They generate a lot
more thrust and if I recall, hold the speed record for
propeller driven aircraft.
Viddie is running backward
ReplyDeleteA turbo-prop engine with 2 contra-rotating props is like a thermos keeping hot things hot and cold things cold. How do it know?
ReplyDeletePretty impressive tech considering it's origin and the era it was developed. The Tu-95 is not a small plane and those engines will drive her at near supersonic speeds all day long.
ReplyDeleteNoise to no end. I saw a TU 95 fly over my home on the Oregon coast about five and a half years ago. It was doing a U turn back to the west as I heard a very odd sounding plane, and looked up through a hole in the high overcast. It was way the hell up there, but the turboprops were visibly doing that spinning motion in the sunlight, that is unique. I looked into any info about that fly by, but nothing....
ReplyDeleteI think this stuff happens more than they tell us about.
When I was in the Navy, a sonar tech told me one day that the the Bears could be "heard" by the GIUK gap SOSUS line. Very, very loud.
ReplyDeleteI read that the crewmen on those aircraft have to be medically retired from service due to deafness, because the noise inside of the aircraft is so loud.
ReplyDeleteIt was the down beat radar that we didn't like at all. The bomber was toast if it got in range. The Down Beat would get you targeted by a hundred systems over the horizon.
ReplyDeleteF-14s saw them as Little Friskies cans.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYou didn't need radar to detect a Bear; you could HEAR them a hundred miles out.
DeleteAnd thanks Anonymous, I thought I was the only one that was thinking that.