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Tupolev Tu-74
Role	High altitude reconnaissance aircraft and bomber
National origin	USSR
Manufacturer	Tupolev Design Bureau
Status	Cancelled
Primary user	Soviet military
Produced	1947
Number built	0
Variants	Ilyushin Il-28; Tupolev Tu-73

The Tupolev Tu-74 was a proposed aircraft designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in 1947.

History and specifications

The Tupolev Tu-74 family of planes is often described as the link between the piston and the jet age. The plan proposed producing 72 planes, but instead lost out to a similar aircraft: the Ilyushin Il-28. According to the draft design, the aircraft would have had a wingspan of 22.36 m, an aircraft length of 16.35 meters, an aircraft height of 4.9 meters, a wing area of 60.2 square meters, a normal flight weight of 13.5 tons, a flight weight with overload of 15.1 tons, an empty aircraft mass of 10.14 tons, a maximum horizontal flight speed of 620 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 12,200 meters, climb time to 10,000 meters inn 21.4 minutes, a practical ceiling of 13,200 meters, and a flight range of 3,200 kilometers.^[1] It would have been fitted with either an M-93 engine or DB-84TK engine. The plane was armed with three NR-23 cannons, one for firing forward with an ammunition of 100 shells and two in two remote installations with an ammunition of 200 shells for the defense of the rear hemisphere.^[2] The Tupolev Tu-74 is also known as the Tu-73R as it is a variant highly similar to the Tu-73, a preceding design.