Tupolev Tu-144: Russia's Concorde - Red Star No. 24

Synopsis

The rapid development of commercial aviation in the 1950s and 1960s, coupled with the advancing aircraft technology, led to the conclusion that supersonic flight should not be a privilege of military aviation any longer. The major aircraft manufacturing nations of the world set about developing supersonic transports(SSTs). The best known of these initiatives cam about when Great Britain and France pooled resources to create the famous Concorde. As soon as the Soviet government got wind of this programme it tasked the national aircraft industry with an even more ambitious project that the Soviet Union was to create an SST entirely on its own, an aircraft ahead of the Western world. In the context of the Cold War, this was a matter of national prestige. Predictably, Andrey N. Tupolev, the doyen of Soviet aircraft designers, received the assignment to create the airliner that would place the Soviet Union in the lead of the technological race. After a long programme of research and development effort, the Soviet SST took to the air for the first time on 31st December 1968, ahead of its Anglo-French counterpart. Designated the Tu-144, the aircraft was dubbed, the 'Concordski' in the West. Its similar appearance to the Concorde led to allegations that there had been skulldugery on the part of the Soviets in obtaining information on Concorde by dubious means. The Tu-144 made its first appearance in the west at the Paris Air Show in June 1971. Two years later, at the same event in 1973, an early production Tu-144 crashed. This was a devestating blow to the pretige of the Soviet Union and its aviation industry in particular. The Tu-144 was used for a short time on limited freight and passenger services within the Soviet Union but these ended in 1978. A new role for the aircraft was found in the 1990s when NASA used it for research purposes flying from a base in Russia. This book provides a detailed history of the Tu-144 programme. It gives a comprehensive account of the Tu-144's design and explains the reasons of its premature withdrawal. It also describes the type's recent use in a new-generation SST technology research programme held jointly with NASA. As with the other titles in the Red Star series, it is illustrated with numerous previously unreleased photos and line drawings. This is almost certainly the most complete account of this remarkable and controversial aircraft ever published.