Why this Soviet Bomber was Nicknamed a "Widow Maker" - TU-22
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ค. 2023
- There is nothing more Soviet than an airplane designed to carry alcohol in order to keep its crew comfortable during flight. This is the story of the Tu-22 Supersonic Booze Carrier, and it's #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs
Music:
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There Is No Sequel - Philip Ayers
No Stone Unturned - Brendon Moeller
Out of Order - The Fly Guy Five
Lunch Break in Milan - Trabant 33
Footage:
Select images/videos from Getty Images
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Soviet Archives
Russian Ministry of Defense
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This doesn't seem like "Not what you think"... This is exactly what I thought. The pride and joy of the soviets: A plane that's cooled with vodka!
That's like all of these videos lol. They're almost always what you think, but there's also usually tidbits I didn't know, too, so they're still fun and interesting
Well yeah, eventually the interesting AND obscure historical facts dry up. So you gotta start doing videos on stuff that's a bit better known.
Taikonouts 🇨🇳 : Comrades, please hold our TSINGTAO 🍻🍺
I'm gonna build a vodka-cooled PC. Thanks for the idea!
I'll be honest here. It actually was not what I thought. My first guess was the water alcohol mix was injected into the engines for a takeoff boost. That said, I like the real story better than my guess.🤣
I have heard that once, they considered replacing ethanol with methanol. From the lowliest maintenance handyman to the top generals, this was rejected as damaging and make flying the plane dangerous.
Well, I guess they were right. Blind pilots and maintenance personnel are indeed always a major safety risk.
the only way they could get blind from methanol is by drinking but that's impossible because they wouldn't be drinking methanol from a plane cooling system right?
They actually came up with a deception. Basically the air force claimed replacing it with any industrail alternative would cause toxic fumes to leak into the compartment, as the TU22 would always smell of alchohol due to faulty sealing. This was accepted and never questioned since
@@Loli4lyf right?
@@Loli4lyf Russia bro
@@Loli4lyf even if they dont drink, methanol could still seep from the cooler to the cockpit and persist in the air, waiting to be inhaled
not counting the maintenance guys handling the thing on the ground
methanol is nasty
Paper Skies made an excellent video on this bomber plane and it went exactly as you expect...
It was better than this one
Ivan: "I'm hot. Why is there no AC?"
Igor: **passed out**
Kim Sung Park : Comrades, please hold ma SOJU 🍶
Does it make sense to believe in this nonsense?
Comrade 1: "Comrade 2, do you understand why I pulled you over?"
Comrade 2: "No Comrade 1, I don't understand, I wasn't drinking or anything."
Comrade 1: "Exactly Comrade 2, you were driving *under* the influence. Here is a jug of vodka and be safe out there Comrade."
Taikomnouts🇨🇳 : Comrades.. Please hold our TSINGTAO 🍻🍺
😁😁😁😁😁😁shit.
designing a heavy bomber to have just one pilot at that time seems very strange.
They dont have enought pilot , they only have duell pilot for training plane
Well, obviously so that the crew can have more vodka afterwards. One less crewmember means more vodka to go round for everybody else comrade )))
Well it's not the first time a heavy bomber piloted by only one pilot, for example WW2 Avro Lancaster is only have one pilot
@@philipharris3387 Two better, that way, one can get really drunk and they can still fly
@@KC-bu8qq true lol
"Comrade were on a oil crisis-"
-"Let the vodka do the work"
Make VODKA Great Again 💯
Oil crisis in Russia? Are you trying to stupidly joking?
This man has sick sense of humor and can make joke without even offending anyone.
Here before NWYT changes the thumbnail
And the title
Same
You guys keep waiting ... it's coming!
@@NotWhatYouThink me 2
Ok
As a young HUEY crewchief many years ago I was going through the alternate fuels list for the aircraft. Bacardi 151 was on that list. This pleased me for some reason.
The TU-22 missed missed most of its targets, killed many of its pilots and intoxicated it's entire crew.
Very Soviet indeed
nazdrovia
@@Ass_of_Amalek nie ma lekko
Starfighter was a Soviet plane?
Just like the f104 which was literally called the widowmaker
@@Silver_Prussian I dont remember the f104 intoxicating most of its crew, in this case the tu22 clearly has 1 more point over the starfighter
I think having extra at the end of a more casual flight was just a bonus side effect. The alcohol would have been used to spray the engine to keep it cool under heavy load/take off.
The US Navy decided to poison their ethanol to discourage sailors from drinking it, it still took awhile for sailors to finally stop drinking it.
That or they'll figure out a way to purify the alcohol.
That is probably a misconseption. Methanol injection is only used by turbocharged piston engines.
@@snakeplissken2148 the purpose is different and similar: various turbojet & turbofan engines have used water or another fluid injections. to cool off the engine. think of the rolls-royce pegasus, as a common example. when a harrier is taking off, water is injected into the engine to cool it as the vtol airflow/load ratio was insufficient for cooling. however, as far as i could find, the tu-22 engines did not use it for cooling. the water/ethanol was just used for AC. there was extra if they overfilled the ac tank, or turned the ac down.
@@snakeplissken2148 turbojets are very much turbo charged
You gotta love old soviet engineers... They are BRILLIANT
Mig-25 was called an Alcohol Carrier. It carried not vodka, but pure alcohol. And after each flight they had to drain the alcohol and replace it with new alcohol.
One day a Mig-25 had landed and an officer of the airfield wanted to drain some alcohol from it. He gave a pilot an empty bottle, but the pilot had fucked him off, he said, if you"d had a drum to drain alcohol in it, it would have sense, but it was no use to give me a bottle, the drainage orifice is the size of a drum
I demand a cocktail called TU-22! It would be an alternative to the B-52.
That's some good incentives to not use A/C
Not fuel air-conditioning
"Complete dissapointment" okay fair enough, but condider this. Vodka fuel.
In high spirits 🤣
el avión del "Tío Vulcan" xdd
"Like a persian girl after a nose job"??? That is very oddly specific
Sounds like someone venting some very specific insights about dating Persian girls. 😂
Iran has one of the highest numbers of nose jobs in the world proportional to its population. So it was a reference to that 😉
@@NotWhatYouThink Oh no doubt. I am from the gulf and have seen it myself, but that is still some obscure reference right there. 😉
@@NotWhatYouThink Hahahaha alright I see now 😆
@@NotWhatYouThink Still sounds racist.
6:15 wow that's so cool how miniatures can accurately recreate the breakup of aircraft... Like animation before it was prominent and accurate with data.
This guy, Found and explained, and mustard are all the holy trinity of TH-cam
The Hungarian Air Force also used MIG 21 fighters that year.
The radar system of the planes was cooled with ethyl alcohol.
They took it home properly and drank it with orange juice...
The undercarriage hydraulics worked with ethylene glycol.
Some of the conscripts serving at the airport also drank from it. there was also a death due to poisoning...
A stupid driver drank my Brute face lotion from my military closet, which my girlfriend brought me from Vienna.
Good old days...
@@bugsbunny1833
Industrial alcohol was not drunk in Hungary during communism either!
Industrial alcohol is methyl alcohol.
A highly toxic chemical that causes blindness and death.
The MIG radar was cooled with 96% ethyl alcohol.
Ethyl alcohol is the basis of all spirits, from beer to short drinks.
The MIG21's coolant was concentrated grain alcohol. It is the basis of whiskey and vodka. During operation, the radar boiled this to cool itself. The time of active radar use could not exceed half an hour, because the alcohol had completely boiled off and cooling had stopped.
There was a requirement that the remaining cooling alcohol must be removed after deployment. It should not be used any further. Therefore, the system was always topped up with fresh alcohol. The alcohol used would probably have had to be destroyed, which would have probably made Al Capone frown. Apparently, they did not pour out the chemically pure vodka, but took it home.
During Prohibition in America, the state mixed lethal poisons with ethyl alcohol produced for industrial purposes, which killed more than thirty thousand citizens...
Ethylene glycol is a long-chain alcohol molecule that is still used as a hydraulic fluid today.
This is what the two stupid children in the ranks tasted, and they died of poisoning...
By the way, there was a huge scandal in Austria in the nineties, because wine was adulterated on an industrial scale by adding ethylene glycol.
There are idiots in every country.
It is also of the type in Hungary.
They did a hoax in the United States that year:
A petition was circulated among university students to ban dihydrogen monoxide because it causes suffocation when it gets into the lungs.
Tens of thousands of university students signed this petition to ban the water!
H2O, or dihydrogen monoxide.
So much for education...
This explains why some Soviet/Russian vehicles were/are often left inoperable due to maintenance crews drinking the fluids.
Thats actually horrifying and funny. I didn't get it until i saw them actually drinking the fuel. Oh man.
The fact that it failed to meet its target and killed many of its pilots arguably makes it more Soviet than the vodka cooling system does.
Not what you think is generally PR for the failed Ukraine offensive.
The Russians are crazy. 😂😂
I fully thought this meant that each crew seat came with one of those hydration tubes which they can just drink vodka out of on demand, and I wouldn't be very surprised.
Fun fact, the Russian word for restaurant is… restaurant.
Flying restaurant was another name for the “Bullshot.”
This plane had so many… colorful names.
restaurant also is not english, it's mispronounced french.
Actual fact - OP's comment is a lie. The Russian word for restaurant is ресторан. It is pronounced as restoran as opposed to ˈrest(ə)rənt in English.
@@Ass_of_Amalek after a word is mispronounced in another language for hundreds of years I think it becomes it’s own word😂
@@Pman353 no it doesn't, it's a loanword. but english speakers generally aren't aware of the fact that the english language is particularly packed full of loanwords.
@@Ass_of_Amalek and French is based of Latin. That’s how language works…
Very Russian. Not the only time they did something like this, when they first tested the Proton rocket, they needed to make sure the propellant tanks were watertight. They couldn't use the actual fuel, because that's very toxic and expensive, and because it was in winter in the steppes of Kazakhstan where it's cold, they couldn't use water either. So yes, they settled on 40 tanker cars full of vodka.
They only needed 39 tankers worth 😅
Soviets : vodka cooled jet
Boris : vodka cooled cpu
Alien1 :- would u dare drinking fuel from our space craft
Alien 2:- are u mad, never
Alien 1:- well human can do that, what a brave species
Перед учениями "запад 80" братья лётчики из Болгарии привезли на наш аэродром своих миг 21 в запасных баках- вино! К радости всех лётчиков нашего полка
Керосином не отдавало из за баков?
@@Ser_YOja ему всё равно, лишь бы спи3деть.
Посмотрел... Прочёл комментарии... Рад, что вы, американцы, так думаете!)))... Однако ТУ-22М3 летает, и неплохо воюет))) болезни лечатся, заблуждения- нет!
Belenko, when he defected with the Mig-25, exposed the fact that many planes were not operational because the coolant was sold on the black market.
Thank you for clearing up a misconception I've had for almost half a century about the Soviet Air Force in general, and this aircraft in particular. I've often heard that the Tu-22 was nicknamed the, "Flying Booze Carrier," or the "Flying Restaurant," by its crews. But the usual story I heard - from a variety of sources - is that the chronically drunk Soviets would drain "hydraulic fluid" from the Tu-22 bomber to drink when actual vodka wasn't available. I think a version of this tale was mentioned in Hedrick Smith's 1975 book, "The Russians," that if memory serves, noted there was, "little the Soviets would disdain in their quest for alcoholic oblivion," (or words to that effect.)
Your research shows that there was a lot more to this story than had been generally assumed. Thanks for getting to the bottom of the devil in the details.
i'm still confused about the actual composition of the coolant. you can get 40% ethanol 60% water for a lot cheaper without it being food grade. to load the plane with actual vodka would mean they were planning on drinking it... i feel like it would be more efficient to just buy vodka for that purpose and cool the plane with something else
@@adog3129 Good point. The only answer I can think of is that there are three ways of making an aircraft cooling system: The 'right' way. The 'wrong' way. And the Soviet way.
@@adog3129 I'm very certain those planes' AC didn't run on food grade ethanol, let alone actual vodka, however any grade of ethanol (technical, reagent, for synthesis, etc) is in theory drinkable without much side effects. The only exception of course being denatured alcohol, but unless specified the alcohol wouldn't be denatured but just technical grade ethanol instead. They just named it "vodka" in this video because the 40% ethanol concentration was similar to Russia's favourite alcoholic beverage, but in reality it's not the same, just the same concentration of alcohol.
@@pieterveenders9793 are you sure it's consistently drinkable though? same purity? do they clean the equipment and containers the same way?
@@adog3129 Yes, all ethanol (with the exception of denatured alcohol of course) is consistently drinkable and are of the exact same purity. The difference between various purity grades is mostly just a marketing ploy, in reality they're all made the same way and have the same amount of impurities. It's just that higher purity grades such as reagent grade are routinely assayed for their purity and certified as such, while technical grade is not and therefore cheaper. However they're both made by the same process so in reality they don't differ in purity. Being able to certify the purity of a certain grade of ethanol can be important for legal reasons, like when producing pharmaceuticals or other things which require strict quality control.
Always great videos! 👍🏻
Paper Skies is the Russian Side of the TU-22 his father is a Former Marii Airbase Fighter ( Soviet Top Gun)
My cousin had served as a navigator on the latest aircraft of that breed right before SU collapsed and he returned back to Ukraine. Yeah, they used alcohol for various systems cooling and ice build protection. And of course, all flight crew and ground based service team got drunk very often. Alco consumption soared. Then top brass tried to fix it and ordered to put some bitter add in the alcohol made swallowing just impossible. For the very short time things were settled. But very soon devious crew learned to filter liquid through gas mask absorber. Consumption resumed.
That's a beautiful looking plane.
I imagine some Tu-22 Vodka would be worth something today.
The flight prototype of the Beechcraft/Raytheon Premier I business jet had downward ejecting seats in the cockpit. I remember seeing a video of the ejection test during an Open House event back in the mid-1990s when the plane was still in development.
Who ever can create a time machine wins
Even know it's looks weird. It still win my heart for the design, don't forget. This bomber that lead to the Tupolev TU - 22M3 Backfire
MiG-25 Foxbat carries over 200 litres of grain alcohol along with it too...
I don't mean to kill this very funny video on Tu 22 bomber however its incorrect to say that the Tu 22 carried vokda on board. The fact is ethanol is indeed alcohol but one can only consume it when its mild that is when it has upto 40% alcohol content in it be it vodka. The Tu 22 and other soviet planes like Mig 25 s had ethanol-water based AC systems on board its cockpit which would only be operational at altitudes above 15000 ft to save power and ethanol for full flight endurance which was normally at altitudes of more than 30,000 ft for bombers . Also by time these planes would land , most water inside the enathnol water mixture would evaporate since water had low specific density than that of specially synthesized high specific density ethanol for Tu 22 , the Enthanol tank would be left with very concentrated enthanol which was technically spirit and not vodka . The Russian airmen if lucky would drain out this left over spirit and would enjoy it little. Russians nicknamed this leftover spirit as " Technichiskispirit" and yes it was not Vodka and they tasted it sometimes especially in winters as overdose of these spirits was fatal...
Thank you for the adequate answer to your comrades. Thank you! At the moment I am a military pensioner, I can say that this video is not true... there was no widespread drunkenness in the Air Force. Navigator Tu - 22 M3 1988-2005 forgot to add.... Sincerely, long-range aviation navigator of the USSR Air Force
The best part is the fact that the thumbnail is not a clickbait.
The most soviet/slavic thing I’ve seen today
Getting loaded into the cockpit like that would trigger my claustrophobia.
Love it
This is the most Cheeki Breekiest thing I’ve ever heard so far! Hahaha
the alcohol mixture were use to cool something like the air flow of the engine line , instead of mixing industrial alcohol for every flight , it was easier to get vodka from Soviet Liquor supplier .
4:30 that was so out of nowhere 😂 👃
There is a good poem by a great poet. The shoemaker, looking at the portrait, pointed out to the artist an error in the image of shoes. The artist corrected the drawing. The shoemaker began to criticize other details of the portrait, to which he received the answer: "Judge, my friend, no higher than a boot!"
Is the plane may be rated no higher than alcohol? It is unpleasant to observe and read many of those who have note here.
The first Versions of the F-100 Super Sabre also had a downwards Ejiection System.
This is not vodka,it is a mixture of alcohol and water in a certain propotion.
Right On
4:27 LOL, it needs to be pointy! Pointy is scary!
the first version of tu22 is very based, the real booze carrier, i wish tu22m3 had vodka tank too
It would be nice if world governments learned to work together and put all those resources in to helping the planet rather than destroying it!
Все верно, Ту-22 - стратегический спиртоносец. Кода полеты начинались - вся часть пьяная ходила .
в детстве лазили по Ту22 первой версии. там за бомболюком в торце камера в кубометр для чистого спирта. оттуда то родитель и таскал спирт в трехлитровках. Спирт был чистый - отравление летчика было дороговато для государства. Насчет с водой 60% - не знаю. Подозрение что и в антиобледенительной системе тот же спирт был
Ah yes, the supersonic booze carrier
Oh yeah baby. Another video
Besides all design flaws, it's actually super hype that you can drink the remaining cooling system. In that way it's very unique.
Aeronave muito impressionante! 🌟
I want to call TU-22M3 (I guess, the 22's offspirng) Acella, 'cause with its Kh-22/32 complement it ALWAYS misses the target: "Акелла промахнулся" is a popular quote from the soviet rendition of Maugli and the rockets probable hit circle is like 1-5 kms.
If only those misses didn't obliterate whole apartment blocks or squares as it often happens 😢
Andrey Tupolev must have had some booze when he came up with the design though
вот так и пропили всю авиацию, молодцы!!
Don’t drink and fly!
That’s got to be the harshest shot ever
What can you do? You can poison the vodka so the crew can't drink it.
I like how if i watch nwyt's shorts i says I've watched this video
The guy at 7.35 completely cool in front of the plane. Any sources for this footage?
That nose job joke was funny though 😂😂
Don't drink and drive to a whole new level!Literally. 😂
The most significabt upgrade of TU22 was the increased of Vodka being filled to the bomber.
I think narrator accidentally swapped E and O in Tupolev at ~ 4:32 … Tupelov is not a usual name, but it was also (maybe accidentally) used in the Hunt for Red October movie.
baller
Flaps... check, ignition... check, accelerate, rotate and... we have Smirnoff!
4:45 - 5:13 so it traded one pitch issue with a whole different pitch issue?
Imagine living in a country where you can drink alcohol while on duty
what about the royal navys rum ration? it wasn't that long ago
Well, what can we hide, here in Russia in the wild nineties we often worked drunk a little or a lot. Then times have changed and people have changed with them.
Они пили после работы, а не вовремя неё.
That was really not what I thought!
Отлетал на ТУ - 22 десять лет, и горжусь этим, прекрасный самолет.
ворованный
10:05 Not only the crew were pissed, the higher ups were pissed too.
Given that altitude supersonic aircraft fly at, skin heating have been substantial for AC to be required. The average temperature at 40,000 feet is -70F (-56.7C)
But it's used to cool the bleed air from the compressor stage which supplies the fresh air and supports cabin pressurisation. The only odd thing here is using an open cycle chiller.
The Concord also had significant heating effects.
6:30 this is fine - decided soviet leadership. A quote by paper sky
Cheers! 😂
The Mirror Flight.
Drunk and happy.
Wait... If vodka can do AC, why don't we use it more? No way it can harm the environment that badly
It's too volatile (evaporates too readily). Have to top it off all the time.
Because closed cycle refrigeration is great, and can even be run in the opposite direction as a heater with a fairly trivial adjustable valve. "swamp coolers" work pretty well in hot dry conditions but are poor in high humidity, so I guess using everclear would improve the performance in somewhere like Florida.
So this is a Russian version of the red bull drink that flies you😂😮
I`m surprised that no one died drinking that contaminated vodka
GIVE THEM THE KEYS
Interesting video. Kudos to the team.
Ivan Ivanovich, cheers. I am missing the Beluga(most popular Russian Vodka). Keep drinking and let NATO continue winning in Ukraine without fighting 😂.
Cheers
See this is what Im talking about, us super sonic booze cruisers are not the problem, its the booze crashers
I need to learn more about Soviet aircrafts
LOVE THIS hahaha 😂 Vodca
Good blindness protection! 😅
That's the most Soviet thing I've ever heard. It was rushed, it was flawed, it was nowhere near as capable as promised and it had systems running with vodka, that was distributed by the crews which haven't been killed in an accident. I'm officially amazed :D
Wait a minute. My old car A/C stopped working long ago. So if i fill it with a bottle of Smirnov it will work again?
Well, now i need to find out how to get some “Aviation Vodka” now
Pigeon on top between the engines.