It was mentioned earlier that the Tu144 did not supercruise...and that Soviet designers never did solve the technical challenges in creating an efficient engine inlet...
In the spirit of fairness and accuracy...this is not correct...it is true that the initial version of the airplane was not ale to supercruise...due to using
inefficient Kuznetsov turbofan engines... instead of more efficient turbojets which are better suited to supersonic cruise...the Russian designers were aware of this but there was not a suitable turbojet engine available at the time...
The D model of the airplane switched to Kolesov RD36 turbojets when those became available...and was able to cruise at M2 without reheat...SFC of the Kolsesov engine was comparable to the Olympus at ~1.2...although the Kolesov was a bigger more powerful engine with `12,000 pounds of cruise thrust compared to the Olympus's 10,000...
The more efficient engines greatly increased the range of the airplane to 3,500 nm...largely closing the gap with Concorde's 3,900 nm range...an extended range model was in the works that would have exceeded Concorde...when the program was cancelled in 1983...
The original intake ducts were not as efficient as Concorde...but this was rectified with subsequent models...starting with the S model that preceded the D...
In the 1990s Nasa obtained a Tu144LL which was a D model retrofitted with Kuznetsov fan enngines due to the fact that the more efficient Kolesov jets were no longer in production...a comprehensive flight test report is available from Nasa...
http://dcb.larc.nasa.gov/DCBStaff/ebj/Papers/TM-2000-209850.pdf
The report notes that "the engine inlets appeared insensitive to sideslips (up to 4.5 degrees) or to pitching moments..."...this points to good inlet design...something that is not always present in supersonic aircraft...for instance the F14 which was known to have compressor stalls at high yaw angle...
Overall the Tu144 is a bigger and heavier aircraft than Concorde and was able to reach a higher speed...M2.4...although cruise was at M2...the prototype used a lot of titanium although this was cut down on production models...unfortunately...
Regards,
Gordon.