Editing Andrei Tupolev (section)

===Post-war===
Tupolev headed the B-4 project, as it was initially designated, to [[reverse engineer]] the American [[Boeing B-29 Superfortress]] strategic bomber, which had been the first aircraft to deliver a [[nuclear weapon]]. The Soviet Union had repeatedly asked for B-29s through the  World War II [[Lend Lease]] program but these requests were all denied by the US. Tupolev succeeded in the complex task of re-engineering the design with Russian engines, weapons, equipment and airfoil sections, while using available metric sheetmetal which required a nearly complete redesign as the original had been built to imperial measurements, while new alloys also had to be brought into production. They used four B-29s which had come down in Soviet controlled territory as references, after having sustained light damage while bombing [[Japan]] in 1945. Tupolev's own design for the role had been ignored in the interest of getting the new long range bomber into service as rapidly as possible to respond to the multiple illegal American overflights, mostly with [[Martin PBM-5 Mariner]]s that had already begun, and the overt threat of nuclear attack. Tupolev had several examples of the resulting [[Tupolev Tu-4|Tu-4]] flying in time for the 1947 [[May Day]] parade.

By the time of his rehabilitation on 9 April 1955, Tupolev had designed and was about to start testing his unique [[turboprop]] strategic bomber, the [[Tupolev Tu-95|Tu-95]]. In the following years, Tupolev overcame competition from [[Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev|Vladimir Myasishchev]] and his M-4 series of [[jet-powered]] strategic bombers, to get the [[Tupolev Tu-16|Tu-16]] design into service. This was in part thanks to Tupolev's close rapport with [[Nikita Khrushchev]], the new leader of the Soviet Union who had denounced Stalin's terror, of which Tupolev had been a victim. At about the same time, Tupolev introduced into service the [[Tupolev Tu-104|Tu-104]], the world's second operational production [[jet airliner]].