REF ID:A39308 

• F 

r~ .. 1 . 1,... II ... ./J' • Matter· of Fact • By J0&eph and Stewart Alsop 

Soviet J~t Engine ___ /{, ;/,. ...... t __________ ·sl/ 

1 

- "!'BE PENTAGON mteW· •ence analysts have reluctantly concluded that the Sovent Union i\already pro- ducing a jet ngine about 

twice as powerful as ID1 yet produced in the United 

States. 

_ Tbls is the biggest shock, 'Dae bitterest pill, in a devel· 

epmeDt that was pnerally 

lhockiq and unexpected. Un• 

' tll l few months ago, the of· 

ficial forecasters were con· vJnced that the Soviet aircraft 

industry would need at le111t 

two years more to turn out 

planes are alreab in the 

B4'7 and B& But DOW such 

*lue1 are already in the 

-.ir. aa re)IOrted in this space, . In the form of thci Soviet 

TU-37 and TU.at. 

To find the Soviet strategic air development two years 

ahead of schedule was un· pleasant enough in. itself. It 

wu even more unpalatable td find that tbl.s remarkable 

SO\llet Jump forward depend· · ed upon, and in fact probably 

reaulted from, the 11uccessful 

design of a jet engine great- ll' surpassing any jet engine as yet designed in tbe West. 

At first, therefore the whole 

development was dismissed u 

fraudu!ent and imaginary. ' 

Ther':I were pretty 1ood rea· son, at first, to think that the 

Soviet displq of new strategic air power waa nothinl but 

another proof of the RussJan 

talent for building Potemkin villages. Potemkin had a 

strong interest in convincing the Empress Catherine that 

her realm was prosperous, 

and he built his cardboard 

\lfllqes to prove IL So the 

Kremlin today has a strong .Interest in convincing the 

West of the power of the Soviet strategic air army. 

The circumstances Jn which 

the first of the new planes was seen were also decidedly 

JUBpicious. As thoulh Inviting Inspection., a TU-37, which 

is the equivalent of :>ur B-U, 

not only flew low over Mos- cow. but also virtuallJ circled 

above the American Embassy. 

The new all'.craft was slight-· ly larger than its American 

equivalent. Where the B-52 

needs the thrust of eight of 

the largest American Jet en· gtnea to do its job, the TU-3'1 

showed only four-engine na· celles. • 

TO· BE SURE, the air In· 

takes of the TU-37 engines were startlingly huge. But the 

American analysts ~alculated 

that a four-engined bomber 

of this size wo'uld normau:; 

require engine• with the un· precedented thrust of 18,000 

to 20,000 pounds. . , 

They calculated f·u r t h e r 

that the TU-37 would look like 

th• real thing with elllh&es of 

7500 paqnda thrust, provided 

it carried no pllJ load and fUel 

for oliIJ a couple of hours In 

the m. They :cemembered the 

apparent Soviet intention to 

tmpress. And so, initially, 

they wrote the ;whole thing olf as fake. 

Unfortunately, this comfortable conclusion did not stand 

up fqr very long. It had hardly 

bean reached indeed, when 

more than 20 TU-39s were ob-

·served, under very different 

eircum.stancies, flyiJit In formation. Then was no indication., this time, of a desire to 

lmpre11s. Whereas the TU-37 was flown publicly In the Mo• 

COW air show, the TU-38 hu never Qeen public]J flown to 

this dat. 

FurthermOl'8, the TU-37 was a twin-engined jet bomber al· 

most euct]y comparable In 

size to our JM7, which has 

four engines. And in the 

TU-39 there were the same. 

starWngly big air intakes that 

had so puzzled the experts in 

the TU-37. . It was not possible to believe that the sighting of a large number of TU-39s, flying formation In a wq that 

indicated advance unit train· 

lng, was Jut another PoteJDkin village. On the other 

hand, if you asaumed the ex· istence of a new engine pow· 

erful enough to need the out. 

sized air Intake, the whole 

pattern made sense. 

FOR ALL THESE REA· ~s. In the language of a ver, high authority, "we have 

got to assume that there is 

nothinl fake about the two new Soviet planes; and we 

have got to assume further 

tQt Soviet jet engine design has · Offl'taken American jet 

englne de~. at least in the 

1

. . cardinal 'point of t h r u s t, 

which means power." 

Tti1s k i n d of unpleasant shock hu been repeatedly felt 

at the Pentapn from the first 

Soviet atomic bomb tests on· ward. For euJDple, these re· ' 

porters can well rememfJer the . late ~D. Hoit Vandenberg tr- • guiDI that the first MIGil WU 

not' ati important phenom• 

DOD, but was a -specially built 

plane main17 intended to Im· 

press the West. 

At that tinie, the official 

analysts had told Gen. Van· 

denberg the B-1ans could never produce MIGs in quan· tit)', because we ounelves were then having such diffi· 

culty in quantity producing 

jet engines for our own fight- ers. But according to tbe DOW· 

accepted ofBcial estimate, the 

Soviets have finally ptoduced no less tlan 13,000 MIG-15s ~ before shutting off tbe IJne. 

One can see why Donalcl 1 

Quarles, the Assistant Secre- 1 

tary of Defense for Research 

Development, recently 

wamed that the Soviets were challenging the American 1 

lead In weapons development. i 

But one cannot see whf Sec- 1·. 

retary of Defense Charles B. 

Wilson came very close to 

complacently con tradlctlq 1 

his own subordinate the verr J 

next dq, I 

'~··&..•-& .. T•t I 

'·