Tupolev Tu-126

The Tupolev Tu-126, given the NATO reporting name Moss, was a Soviet airborne early warning and control aircraft built by the Tupolev design bureau on the airframe of the Tu-114 airliner. It was ordered after 1958, when concern over an American nuclear strike from the north created a need for radar cover of the long Soviet northern coast without an enormous chain of ground stations. The wider Tu-114 fuselage solved the cooling and crew space problems met with the narrower Tu-95 and Tu-116, and an air refuelling probe was fitted for range. The aircraft carried the Liana radar in a rotodome above the fuselage and had a crew of twelve. The prototype flew on 23 January 1962, and eight production aircraft followed between 1965 and 1968. The radar had no look-down capability and its performance over land was poor, so it served only until 1984, when the Beriev A-50 replaced it.