Curiously, both Concorde and the Tu144 built the same quantities of aircraft, 4 prototypes and 16 production aircraft, for a total of 20 each. Two of the Tupolevs were static test airframes and didn't fly, and it is doubtful whether the final production Tupolev flew either, but in manufacturing terms both were equal.

Also curious that the two well-known accident sites, of one of each type, happened almost within walking distance of one another, although Tupolev lost a second aircraft during flight testing.

The Le Bourget crashes were only about 3 miles apart I believe.

Concorde was actually 6 prototypes and 14 production aircraft (7 to AF, 7 to BA), plus a 'destructive test' incomplete airframe that was heated and stressed in a rig to simulate airline flights to test for fatigue problems (there were none).

The final prototypes were almost up to production standard - the British one, G-BBDG, flew with BA staff as pax but never in airline service. It was the spares 'christmas tree' for the fleet so was just a shell by the end of Conc ops. It was trucked to Brooklands and given most of the interior of G-BOAB (the Heathrow stalker). What will happen to AB now is anyone's guess.

Did the Soviets ever have any serious export ambitions for the TU144?

I expect they'd have like to have sold it, but it such a short range due horrendous fuel consumption that it would have been unsaleable. Heck, even the technically excellent Concorde proved to be unsaleable!

According to increasingly fallible memory, in the mid-70s the 144 was used on a state visit to Tanzania - Dar es Salaam? by the USSR premier of the time.

That is indeed the second loss I referred to above. It had a fuel leak leading to an engine fire at relatively low altitude, and was most surprisingly (not to mention skilfully) put down in a potato field at Yegoryevsk south-east of Moscow, from which most of the crew walked away. Anyone knowing the mostly forested countryside here will understand that putting any jet transport down there in a clear space is quite an achievement.

ASN Aircraft accident Tupolev 144D CCCP-77111 Yegoryevsk

can someone help my memory please - I worked at Marshalls of Cambridge as it then was, in 1969/70 production controlling, amongst other things, assemblies for the droop nose and visor of the second and third Concordes (ISTR 002 and 003), which Marshalls designed. I think 01 had a circular cross section nose, subsequent aircraft it was oval (but may have been t'other way round). Did Marshalls build the noses/visors for the rest of the fleet or just those two?