Why does the Tu-134UBL have a sharp/pointed nose cone? Russian/Soviet aircraft design has always intrigued me, and even more so when coming across this photo of the Tupolev Tu-134UBL with its pointy nosecone.
Having looked up the performance characteristics of the aircraft, it &quot;only&quot; seems to fly at sub to trans-sonic speeds (max. speed 890km/h or Mach 0.72 at sea level).
Based on my limited knowledge reinforced by this great post, it only makes sense to use a pointy nose cone when the aircraft travels at supersonic speeds.
Therefore, would the reason for the nosecone design be for some other function rather than just aerodynamics? Radar?
According to Wikipedia, the UBL variant of the TU-134 was designed/used to train TU-160 crew, and is using its nose-cone.
As to why, I think we can only assume. I think that a fair assumption would be that it contains the radar from the TU-160 (or a stripped-down version of it), and/or so the crew will have a similar visibility as they would on a TU-160.
The overall performance differences between the TU-134 and 160 are too far apart (the -134 being a subsonic airliner and the -160 being a supersonic bomber) for the shape of the nose cone alone to make any sort of a significant difference.