Nuclear aircraft

A nuclear aircraft is an aircraft powered by atomic energy.

The only known experiment by the United States with an operational nuclear reactor on board was NB-36.

In the early 1990's it was discovered that the Soviet Union had flown a nuclear powered aircraft as early as 1961. They used a modified Tu-95 "The Bear" bomber airplane. They got around the problem of shielding the crew from radiation by simply having hardly any shielding and thus irradiating the crew. It had 2 conventional turboprop engines and 2 experimental "dirty" direct cycle jet engines powered by a minimally shielded nuclear reactor in the main fuselage. The aircraft flew about 40 times.