TUPOLEV HAS confirmed it will not develop business jet variants of its supersonic strategic bombers, despite repeated pleas from wealthy individuals. Speaking to Russia’s TASS news agency, the manufacturer’s Deputy CEO for Design, Research and Development, Valery Solozobov said: “Big business tycoons in different countries (an Arab sheikh, a millionaire in Australia and a wealthy Greek among them) keep asking us to make a personal supersonic plane on the basis of the missile-carrying Tu-160 or Tu-22M3 long-range bomber. We get such messages regularly, some of them through the Rosoboronexport agency.”
Solozobov noted such an endeavour would be “a very costly affair”, noting that some of the technology employed on the aircraft, such as the variablesweep wing, would “not be necessary” on a business jet. He added that many of the systems on the Tu-160 in particular remain classified, and confirmed all requests have been rejected.