“Av Week” and the Soviet Atomic Bomber

I've found and posted some information that may be of interest... basically, what appears to be the source material used for the infamous article in the December 1, 1958, issue of Aviation Week titled “Soviets Flight Testing Nuclear Bomber.”

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9254

Thank you Orionblamblam for providing possible explanations for this famous Aviation Week article.

Is there any evidence supporting the allegation that this Aviation Week article was a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as the truth? There seems to be too many people claiming the article was a hoax without providing evidence to support that conclusion.

When was it known that the Myasischev M-50 "Bounder" was in fact jet-powered and not nuclear-powered?

A couple of scenarios=

1. Some "Curveball" type decided to tell interrogators what they wanted to hear.
2. As something worked up the heirarchy, the threat level was rounded up.
2b. As above, but the certainty level was rounded up.
3. GE bent the information to its best interests.
4. Somewhere in translation, or along the information pipeline from Mya to the CIA, "Nuclear Bomber" changed in concept from "a bomber designed to carry nuclear weapons" to "nuclear powered bomber"

Any of those is possible.

But it certainly looks to me like Av Week is somewhat exonerated. While I only have the charts, and not the verbage (It'd be nice if there was a full report to go with this, but I've not found one), the indications are that most of the Av Week article can be found in the GE presentation. At the very least, it's abundantly clear that Av Week didn't just make the story up out of thin air, but had it fed or leaked to them.

Orionblamblam said:

Any of those is possible.

But it certainly looks to me like Av Week is somewhat exonerated. While I only have the charts, and not the verbage (It'd be nice if there was a full report to go with this, but I've not found one), the indications are that most of the Av Week article can be found in the GE presentation. At the very least, it's abundantly clear that Av Week didn't just make the story up out of thin air, but had it fed or leaked to them.

Click to expand...

It's unfortunate that two Wikipedia articles that discuss the contents of the Aviation Week article begin with the section heading "Nuclear Bomber hoax" and state that "In reality, however, the article was a hoax."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-50

Wikipedia provides no footnotes to sources that confirm that Aviation Week knew that the article was inaccurate when it published it and the accompanying editorial on December 1, 1958 or that Aviation Week was deliberately fed or leaked information known at the time to be inaccurate. Printing an article believed to be accurate from a source believed to be credible is not the same thing as perpetrating a hoax. It wasn't like Aviation Week could contact the Soviet government or the Soviet Air Force to confirm the existence of the aircraft.

Someone should probably edit the articles to remove this inaccurate and judgmental language.

Further, Wikipedia states that the Myasishchev M-50 "design was revealed to the public on Soviet Aviation Day in 1963 at Monino, putting the issue to rest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-50

So that means that four years had passed before that article was demonstrated to be inaccurate from publicly available inaccurate.

Did Aviation Week ever print a retraction for the article and accompanying editorial?

Triton said:

Someone should probably edit the articles to remove this inaccurate and judgmental language.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia elite don't consider 'only' a blog to be a source of sufficient quality. OTOH, you can publish any drivel you like in a book and that's considered reliable - see the H-46.

RLBH said:

Triton said:

Someone should probably edit the articles to remove this inaccurate and judgmental language.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia elite don't consider 'only' a blog to be a source of sufficient quality. OTOH, you can publish any drivel you like in a book and that's considered reliable - see the H-46.

Click to expand...

True, the Unwanted Blog may not be considered a credible source of information according to Wikipedia's content standards. However, they also do not cite any sources to support the allegation that the article was a hoax.

But what was the "GE-ANPD XPC 58-8-6 10 July 1958"?

I'd suspect a reference delta wing high subsonic large nuclear bomber, double the max takeoff weight of B-58?

OM said:

...You'll find a lot of this going on over on Wikipedia, especially if the article in question has a 'rogue' or power-mad admin or two assuming total control over the article. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen one of these catamites purge important info and facts from an article on the sole grounds that they themselves didn't post the changes first, I'd be able to afford a bone fused fake leg with all the accessories. It's usually not that bad for the science-based articles, but there are a few articles where it's clear the admin abusing their authority used TOR to build up a bunch of phony accounts to achieve enough 'votes' to get themselves elected as an admin.

Click to expand...

I hear you. I remember one time trying to submit an article on the JMSDF Next Generation Minesweeper program. Put me off trying to submit articles indefinitely.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that an atomic-powered bomber would be more useful to use for anti-ship, anti-submarine, recce etc missions than as a strategic bomber. (Similar to the Tupolev Tu-16 Badger and Tu-95/142 Bear bombers, which have been used for several purposes.) Atomic-powered bombers would be as vulnerable to SAM's and interceptors as a jet-powered bombers, right? I suppose it could be armed with cruise missiles and/or ALBM's, but by that time those had been developed, you would have ICBM's and SLBM's anyway...

With the sub-sonic designs at least, the idea, AFAIK, was endurance, i.e. being able to keep the bombers aloft for days or even weeks on end without landing or support from other aircraft, with all the advantages that provided for both peacetime and wartime strategic roles.

Thanks Grey Havoc. When I think about it, that would be near perfect for a bomber carrying ALMB's, since it would be on the ground far less often, thus limiting the risk of a 1st strike destroying the deterrent. I just hope the crews would get refrigerators (and other nice things) in the cabins...

I just realised that while the risks and precautions against radiation from the reactor usually comes up in discussion about nuclear-powered aircrafts, cosmic radiation isn't mentioned so often AFAIK. Airmen (and -women) who are often exposed to cosmic radiation gets an increased cancer risk; if the bomber crews aren't on the ground as often, they should get medical check-ups more often. How aware were those involved in aeronautics and (aviation) medicine back in the 1950's and -60's?