With the advent of jet-powered bombers, Soviet military planners decided that it simply was not worth devoting the necessary resources to fix its numerous problems.

The revision of the nose caused the twin tails to be enlarged to offset the greater area ahead of the aircraft's center of gravity.

The machine was unstable at all the normal center of gravity positions, the wings and undercarriage were insufficiently strong, the defensive armament proved to be less than fully effective due to the inadequate power provided to the gun mounts by the generators, and the deicing and lighting equipment were inadequate, thus restricting the aircraft's operations in bad weather.

Soviet military planners had decided to devote resources to development of jet bombers, such as the Tupolev '73', which were already flying, and which exhibited much more potential than piston-engined aircraft.

[5] Data from Gordon, OKB Tupolev: A History of the Design Bureau and its AircraftGeneral characteristics Performance Armament