Tupolev TU-144

[VH-KMH]

Whats with theTupolev TU-144?!

It is basically a concorde produced by a another company. what are the differences if any at all between the 144 and the original?

Has there been any problems or controversy with it?

Is it going to become as popular as the Original supersonic traveller????!!!???

I think it is a good thing it has come in though with the original being taken out of service, it gives others the oppurtunity to have a go!:ok:

:D

KMH

:D

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

I think I'm right that one critical difference from the Concorde is that the TU-144 required afterburner use at all times during supersonic phases of flight, which was probably one reason why it burned a hole in the operator's pockets even more than Concordes did, not to mention bring a large range limitation. I don't think it ever carried passengers commercially (so far as anything was commercial in the old Aeroflot days) and it was reduced to carrying boxes.

[Yak97]

VH-KMH

You posted "Has there been any problems or controversy with it?"

What apart from:

1. the whole idea was stolen from the UK/French as an espionage exercise by the Russian KGB to obtain new technology
2. that the prototype crashed at the Paris air show under murky circumstances
3. that they had to fit the thing with retractable fore-planes to make it fly properly, which filled up the front of the passenger cabin with the operating mechanism.

I do believe it did carry some fare paying passengers but not many. The normal Russian procedure was for the aircraft to go into freight service first for a period of time before passengers were carried.

Was it is most of the aircraft have long been grounded, apart from 1 that NASA gave the Russian's enough money to refurbish it for some test flights. I think even that has stopped now.

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

Is the TU-144 still operated by Nasa?

http://www.concorde-jet.com/img/tu_144_img.jpg

Thanks
BAe 146-100

[DB6]

VH, I assume you did an internet search on the Tu 144 before you posted here, so you already know that it first flew before Concorde, crashed before Concorde, was withdrawn from service before Concorde, and brought back into service before Concorde. So which is the Original? :rolleyes:

[glynn-kayes]

funny how it looks so much like concorde,but so did their fiat 124 althought i think that one was called the lada riva???

[Flip Flop Flyer]

Have you been sleeping for the past 30 years mate? The Tu-144 only made around 100 commercial flights before it was scrapped. It failed to meet payload/range targets, guzzled fuel at horrendous rates and did in fact crash at the 1972 Paris Air Show (broke up in flight pulling out of a dive, there is a video). It was fitted with canard planes (complete with trailing edge high-lift devices) and new engines after the crash, then started flying between Moscow and Alma-Ata on mail flights - around 100 of them. Only a large handful was ever built, I belive around 7 or so, which are now all in various stages of decay.

NASA and Tupolev brought back one example for test flights, fitted with the engines from a Tu-160 bomber, but those tests are now finished and the aircraft is sitting idle somewhere, sans engines.

To make it short and sweet: If you're gambling on the Tu-144 to revive commercial supersonic flight you're headed for major mental trauma.

[NineEighteen]

BAe 146-100 wroteIs the TU-144 still operated by Nasa?From NASA DFRC (http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/FactSheets/FS-062-DFRC.html)
Six flight and two ground experiments were conducted during the program's first flight phase, which began in June 1996 and concluded in February 1998 after 19 research flights. A shorter follow-on program involving about seven flights began in September 1998 and concluded in April 1999. All flights were conducted in Russia from Tupolev's facility at the Zhukovsky Air Development Center near Moscow.