Tupolev Tu-74

The Tupolev Tu-74 was a proposed aircraft designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in 1947, often described as a link between the piston and jet ages. The plan was to produce 72 of them, but it lost out to a similar aircraft, the Ilyushin Il-28. The draft design gave a wingspan of 22.36 m, a length of 16.35 m, a normal flight weight of 13.5 tons, a maximum speed of 620 km/h at 12,200 m, a practical ceiling of 13,200 m and a range of 3,200 km. It would have used either an M-93 or a DB-84TK engine and carried three NR-23 cannon, one firing forward and two in remote installations defending the rear hemisphere. It is also known as the Tu-73R, a variant highly similar to the earlier Tu-73.