The first aircraft in history. The first jet passenger aircraft in the USSR

In June 1955, an experimental aircraft "104" developed by Tupolev Design Bureau took off from the airfield near Moscow in Zhukovsky. Factory tests of the machine began, which by the autumn of the same year will turn into a Tu-104 jet airliner - the third in the world, the second put into operation and the first in the USSR.

The very theme of the "104th" moved forward only after the death of Stalin, although proposals for the creation of a jet passenger fleet were repeatedly put forward under him. But the leader, with his inherent frugality and penchant for repeated reinsurance, inexorably "cut down" such ideas. The country had just overcome the post-war devastation and could not afford significant "non-core" spending, and jet passenger aviation in the early 50s was still not a problem of prime necessity for the Soviet national economy.

There is a common joke among railway students: "Soviet cars are not designed to carry passengers, they are adapted for it." When creating the first Soviet jet liner, the Tupolev Design Bureau used a similar principle, but seriously and competently. The successful Tu-16 bomber was taken as a basis (the 104 aircraft even at one time bore the Tu-16P index - “passenger”) in order to gain resources and time on the general development of the design.

Thus, the task of training flight personnel was also facilitated, savings were also made on ground maintenance and repair equipment.

As one of the arguments in favor of creating such an aircraft, A.N. Tupolev cited the possibility of flights to high altitude, “over the weather” - propeller passenger aircraft, which had a small ceiling, suffered mercilessly from chatter. But that's where the first jet liner guarded by a new, as yet unknown danger.

When it comes to a passenger aircraft, the first thing that seriously starts to worry potential passengers is reliability. Who in the USSR has not heard the black song: "Tu-104 is the fastest plane: it will take you to the grave in two minutes"? For all its offensiveness, it somewhat reflected the harsh reality. The plane was made in a hurry. accident rate new car exceeded reasonable - by today's standards - indicators. Over the entire history of operation, 37 cars suffered serious accidents - 18% of the total number of vehicles produced. At the same time, it should be noted that the 104th behaved much more decently in flight than its English competitor, De Havilland's Comet (23% of lost cars), which had an unhealthy habit of falling apart in the air due to fatigue loads in a carelessly designed fuselage.

The first Tu-104 aircraft flew in early November 1955. Thus, the development took quite a bit of time. During this flight, there were some problems: during the flight, the plane unexpectedly tossed up, after which the control of the machine was lost for a while. The pilots called this condition "pickup". The reason for this phenomenon could not be determined. Despite this, the operation of the aircraft was continued, and the tests did not stop.

Khrushchev liked the Tu-104 so much that he even decided to fly it to Great Britain in 1956. Since the problems with the aircraft could not be resolved, he was persuaded to abandon such a flight. But it was necessary to demonstrate to the world the successes of the Soviet aircraft industry. Therefore, on the orders of Khrushchev, the Tu-104 was driven to the British capital.

The arrival of the Soviet airliner, according to the British press, had an effect comparable to the landing of a UFO. The next day, a second copy of the Tu-104 flew to London, with a different number. A report appeared in the British newspapers that it was the same aircraft, and the "Russian priests" were "repainting the numbers on their experimental aircraft." "Russian priests" are Russian pilots dressed in all black. Chief designer A.N. Tupolev was offended and, firstly, ordered the pilots to allocate funds to dress in something fashionable and not black, and the next day - March 25, 1956 - to send three Tu-104s to London at once, which was done.

It was a triumph Soviet Union- after all, at that time no other country in the world had operating jet passenger airliners.

The Tu-104 made its first regular flight on September 15, 1956. And in 1958, a black streak began.

As the further development of events showed, the problems with the "pickup" were not resolved. In August 1958, the Tu-104 crashed out of control, killing 64 people. The designer Tupolev denied in every possible way that there were any problems, and the catastrophe, according to him, was the fault of the crew. There is a version that the plane simply did not have enough fuel. But after a while, the second Tu-104 also crashed, going into a tailspin and crashing into the ground.

And two months later, exactly the same situation developed near Kanash.

On October 7, 1958, the new Tu-104A with tail number CCCP-42362, operated by the crew of the most experienced pilot Harold Kuznetsov, was flying Beijing - Omsk - Moscow. The flight altitude was 12 kilometers. In the cabin were mainly Foreign citizens- A delegation of Chinese and North Korean Komsomol activists.

The weather in Moscow was bad, at the Gorky alternate airfield, too, and after flying over Kazan, the controller ordered to turn around and proceed to Sverdlovsk, suitable for landing. During a turn at an altitude of 10,000 meters, the aircraft most likely got into a zone of strong turbulence and a "pickup" occurred - a spontaneous increase in the pitch angle uncontrolled by the crew. Suddenly, the plane was thrown up sharply, and with such force that such a huge colossus flew up two kilometers, left the echelon up, lost speed, fell on the wing and went into a tailspin.

In the situation that arose, the crew did everything possible to save the aircraft. But the lack of elevator travel did not allow the car to be taken out of lethal mode. Harold Kuznetsov, knowing that the Birobidzhan story might be repeating itself, ordered the radio operator to broadcast his words to the ground.

Crew commander Harold Kuznetsov and co-pilot Anton Artemiev tried to level the plane, taking the helm to the stop. But it did not help. Then the plane went down sharply, not obeying the controls. Thus, the aircraft went into a steep uncontrolled dive. At supersonic speed, almost vertically, the plane rushed to the ground.

Here the crew accomplished the almost impossible: the commander Harold Kuznetsov, in two minutes of falling from a height of 13 kilometers, managed to transmit over the radio the features of the behavior of the car. Communication worked almost until the very moment of impact with the ground. The last words of the commander were: “Goodbye. We're dying."

The plane crashed in the Vurnarsky district of Chuvashia, a few tens of meters from the canvas railway Moscow - Kazan - Sverdlovsk, near the village of Bulatovo. 65 passengers and 9 crew members died.

According to the results of the work of the state commission, the accident lasted no more than two minutes.

The information transmitted by Kuznetsov was of great value, since all previous incidents remained unsolved. None of the investigations conducted by specialists from the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet, the Air Force, the State Research Institute, as well as the Tupolev Design Bureau itself, could shed light on what really happened. Many suggestions have been put forward: technical failure, defects in design, poor weather, crew errors.

All the bumps, of course, fell on the heads of the pilots, since no one doubted the technical characteristics of the aircraft. But the information transmitted by Kuznetsov dotted the "i". From the information received, the commission concluded that the liner fell into a huge ascending air stream. None of the designers could even imagine that this was possible at an altitude of more than 9 kilometers, since simple piston machines could climb to a much lower height. Therefore, such a phenomenon as turbulence was considered a trifle. Until tragedy struck.

Kuznetsov's crew hit the very center of the vertical air flow. Later, in the process of reproducing the flight, the designers managed to determine its parameters: the width of the air flow was about 2 kilometers, the length was about 13, and the thickness was about 6 kilometers. At the same time, its speed was approaching 300 kilometers per hour.

It was urgent to find a way to deal with such a dangerous natural phenomenon. As a result, the maximum flight altitude was reduced, the structure itself was modernized, new methods of machine alignment were developed, but still the problem was not completely solved. The high accident rate remained at the same level, but what was the cause - whether design errors, or unpreparedness of the pilots - was difficult to determine.

The transferred information was enough to find and fix the problem. The rules for centering the aircraft were changed, the angle of installation of the stabilizer was changed and the elevator was finalized. has also been reduced maximum height flight. The tendency of the aircraft to "pick up" has been greatly reduced.

After that, the Tu-104 carried passengers for another three decades, and although there were some catastrophes (after all, about 200 aircraft were built and flew), their reasons were already different. Tu-104 became long time the main passenger aircraft of Aeroflot: for example, in 1960, a third of passenger air transportation in the USSR was carried out on the Tu-104. Over 23 years of operation, the Tu-104 aircraft fleet has carried about 100 million passengers, spent 2,000,000 flight hours in the air and completed more than 600,000 flights.

Much credit for this belongs to Harold Kuznetsov and his crew. Here are their names:

Kuznetsov Harold Dmitrievich - FAC instructor
Artemov Anton Filimonovich - FAC
Rogozin Igor Alexandrovich - co-pilot
Mumrienko Evgeny Andreevich - navigator
Veselov Ivan Vladimirovich - flight engineer
Fedorov Alexander Sergeevich - radio operator
Smolenskaya Maya Filippovna - flight attendant-translator
Goryushina Tatyana Borisovna - flight attendant
Maklakova Albina - flight attendant

It is not surprising that the aircraft acquired a bad reputation. In 1960, the Tu-104 liner was discontinued, and the Il-18 turboprop liners took its place for a while. And since a long strip was needed to disperse the Tu-104, it was used on domestic flights infrequently.

There was a need to create new passenger aircraft. Tupolev decided not to retreat from the intended path. As a result, the first modification of the Tu-104, the Tu-124, was created, which also had a high accident rate. Therefore, another version was created - the Tu-134. This aircraft was more successful, so since the start of operation in 1967, it still flies to domestic airlines. And only in 1972 did the first Tu-154 jet liner appear, which was not converted from military machine, and was originally designed as a passenger. This is one of the favorite aircraft of domestic experienced pilots.

Aeroflot removed the last Tu-104s from regular airlines only in 1979. But by that time the aircraft had firmly taken root in military aviation - it was used for training pilots of naval missile carriers, as a flying laboratory, for meteorological research and as a staff aircraft. The flights of the 104s were finally stopped only at the beginning of 1981, after an overloaded car belonging to the USSR Navy crashed at a military airfield near Leningrad. It almost completely killed the command staff of the Pacific Fleet - 52 people, including 17 admirals and generals, including the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Emil Spiridonov, who had the ill-fated car at his disposal.

Such a bitter experience forced domestic designers to think of new aerodynamic forms that could withstand air currents.

Officially, the last flight of the Tu-104 took place in November 1986. But some people claim that at the very end of the 80s they saw "104s" on the platforms of regional airports and even in flight. The son of a warrior and the grandfather of Soviet jet airliners did not want to retire, remaining a sort of kind ghost in an impoverished but comfortably inhabited castle of domestic civil aviation.

Near Moscow, on the Kiev highway, at the turn to Vnukovo airport, a Tu-104B was met, standing on a high pedestal. As it turned out, this aircraft was installed in 2006, before it there was another Tu-104B in Vnukovo, which, on someone's stupid order, was cut down in 2005. The tail number of the car is not real, the number USSR-L5412 was worn by the first Tu-104, which performed the first flight with passengers.

The beginning of the current era of globalization can be considered the 50s of the last century. The first ones that appeared then jet aircraft tightly tied cities distant from each other.

Dawn of the era of jet velocities

The first jet passenger aircraft appeared first in Great Britain and then in the USSR. Their speed was very different from the speed of propeller-driven aircraft flying at that time.

The jet Tu-104 flew almost three times faster than the civil propeller Il-14 (800 km/h versus 320 km/h).

It is incorrect to compare comfort only because the flight on high altitudes at jet aircraft it passed without the usual chatter for propeller-driven machines.

The capacity of the new aircraft was many times different from the capacity of propeller-driven aircraft. So, transported in one flight, IL-12 - 27.

The first porthole is lumpy

The first jet passenger aircraft appeared in the UK in May 1952. This aircraft, designed in 1949, was unreliable, and after a series of 12 accidents was withdrawn from service.

He returned to the line only in the mid-50s, after significant changes in the design. Including the cause of the disasters was eliminated - the weakness of the metal at the windows.

belated korean hello

The first domestic jet aircraft Tu-104 took off for the first time just at the time of the correction of the Comet - June 17, 1955.

As usual, we harnessed slowly, but on the other hand, we drove not only quickly, but also reliably. For the West, which was then behind the Iron Curtain, this was a serious blow.

Most recently, they got to know our military very closely. jet aircraft In Korea. Now their attention was offered quite a competitive passenger jet liner. Success can be explained by another fact -

our jet aircraft was created on the basis of the reliable Tu-16 strategic bomber.

The first regular flight Tu-104 made on the route Moscow-Irkutsk. Note that the launch of the domestic first jet took place without the great loss of life that accompanied the launch of the Comet. And this is despite the fact that the Comet also went down in history as an aircraft that passed a huge number of tests and checks before launching into a series.

For example, the fuselage of an aircraft was tested under a constantly changing pressure difference. There were 16,000 such pressure change cycles, which corresponded to 40,000 flight hours. For the Tu-104, passenger safety was thought out not only at the technological level.

In the interiors of the cabin, the principle of "salon - home" was implemented, creating a homely atmosphere inside the aircraft.

In the first machines, gold and walnut look materials were actively used for decoration, elements of the so-called "imperial architecture" were used. Subsequently, the same principle will be incorporated into the interior of the cabins of the first supersonic aircraft.

Unfortunately, later the interior was unified in accordance with world standards. Approximately the same as the chic VAZ-2103 with wood-like inserts was simplified to the plastic-dermantine version of the VAZ-2106.

Veterans do not grow old in soul

In total, for more than 20 years of service life, the Tu-104 carried about 100,000,000 passengers.

The decommissioned aircraft continued to benefit the homeland, acting as a simulator for astronauts to work in zero gravity.

And the real centenarian among jet firstborns must be recognized (the wing in the photo is just his). Starting his career a little later, in 1958, he still continues to be used as a cargo aircraft on some.

On September 15, 1956, the first jet entered the Aeroflot routes. passenger liner Tu-104. The history of this aircraft began back in 1953, when the Tupolev Design Bureau received the task of creating a jet passenger liner. In order not to waste time, the Tupolev team took the newly developed Tu-16 bomber as a basis. The terms of reference for the Tu-104 indicated that the machine should take on board up to 50 passengers and up to 1250 kg of cargo, fly at a speed of 959-1000 km / h over a distance of 3200 to 3500 km and have a takeoff run of no more than 1650 m. From the bomber, the liner got the cockpit, wings, engine nacelles, landing gear, as well as navigation instruments, but all other parts were redesigned. In December 1954, the state commission approved the layout, and already in March 1955, an experimental machine was built. In May 1956, the first aircraft, after testing, entered the civil air fleet, and on September 15, the Tu-104 made the first regular flight on the Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route. Thus, less than three years have passed from the beginning of the development of the liner to its serial operation.

Tu-104 aircraft On September 15, 1968, the Zond-5 space station flew around the moon for the first time. On a cosmic scale, the automatic apparatus passed literally "close" to the Moon, only 1900 kilometers away. The station was controlled at a distance of about 400 thousand kilometers. It was on this day that the USSR announced a new victory in space, the first unmanned spacecraft to fly around the moon in history. The Zond-5 flight made it possible for the first time to solve the most complicated scientific and technical problem of returning to Earth an apparatus flying at 2 cosmic speed along the Moon-Earth path. Interestingly, the Zond-5 ship carried a turtle, which became the first creature in history to circle the moon and return to Earth.

Spacecraft Zond-5 On September 15, 1997, the Google.com domain was registered. The founders of the future corporation, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met a couple of years earlier, in 1995 at Stanford University. And already in 1996 they started developing the BackRub search engine. After a year of running the system on Stanford servers, its traffic has exceeded the bandwidth of the university's networks, and friends come to the conclusion that it is time to grow. In addition, they decide to choose a new name. Google comes from a corruption of the word googol, which means the number ten to the hundredth power. The name Google was first used in the Google.stanford.edu domain. Despite the fact that the domain was registered back in 1997, the friends filed an application for registering the company only a year later, on September 4, 1988. However, September 15th is considered the birthday of Google and its main domain, Google.com.

Civil aviation has developed at an unprecedented pace. To become one of the most popular species passenger transport eclipsed by the railway, aviation took only six decades. Air passengers appeared in 1908, the first air cargo was delivered in 1910, the first chartered flight was completed in 1911, the first airline to carry passengers on schedule - in 1914, the first stewardess - in 1930, the air marshal - in 1968.

1901 American inventor Orville Wright made the first manned flight aircraft heavier than air. Historical event took place near the town of Kitty Hawk in the state North Carolina. The Wright Flyer (invented and assembled by two brothers - Orville and Wilbur\\Wilbur Wright) flew 36.5 meters and stayed in the air for 12 seconds. Three more flights were made immediately afterwards, one of which lasted almost a minute.

It is curious that the inventors of the aircraft, like many other inventors, were sure that their offspring would serve exclusively the cause of peace. The Wright brothers believed that the airplane would make world peace possible. There will be no more wars because there will be no more safe places, That's why powers of the world they don't want to risk their lives. As you know, the Wright brothers were wrong - the cause of the tragedies of Guernica, Dresden and Hiroshima were planes.

Less well known is that the pioneer of aviation was the French inventor Clement Ader, who in 1890 assembled the Eole aircraft and fitted it with a steam engine. In the same year, near Paris, Eole flew about 50 meters. However, it was the Wright brothers' aircraft, equipped with an internal combustion engine, that became the conceptual model for other inventors.

1906 The first aviation record is set. French pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont climbed to a height of 6 meters and covered a distance of 220 meters.

1907 The world's first airport with aircraft hangars was built - it was located in French city Issy-les-Moulineaux.

American businessman Glenn Curtis founded the world's first aviation company.

1908 A resident of the city of Daytona (USA, Ohio) Charles Furnas \ Charles Furnas became the world's first air passenger. Wilbur Wright gave a friend a ride on his plane: the flight lasted 29 seconds, Farnes covered a distance of 600 meters.

The Wright brothers entered into the world's first contract with the state. The US administration agreed to pay $25,000 for a two-seat aircraft that could cover a distance of 160 km at a speed of 60 km per hour. The text of the contract included the symbolic addition "the aircraft must be able to fly this distance without falling to the ground."

US Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first passenger to die in a plane crash. The plane piloted by Orville Wright crashed. The passenger was killed, Wright himself was seriously injured.

Frenchwoman Teresa Peltier became the first air passenger. She was taken on board his plane by the French pilot Leon Denarge.

1910 The Aero Club of France issued the world's first pilot's license. The first 16 certified pilots did not include Charles Vozin (the first Frenchman to take to the air on an airplane), but included five people who had never flown at all. In the same year, for the first time, a French woman, Elise Deroche, received a pilot's license (she is in 36th place in the list of the Aeroclub).

The world's first international negotiations began in Paris - the states of Europe and North America began to discuss the possibility of creating a legal basis for the organization of international air travel.

In the United States, for the first time, an aircraft radio station was tested. Canadian pilot Jack McCurdy\J.A.D. McCurdy transmitted literally the following to the ground radio station: "A new chapter in the history of aviation achievements has been written."

For the first time, a mid-air collision occurred. The first occurred in Austria, but it was not officially registered (the Warchalovsky brothers collided, the results of the accident are unknown). Two months later, a similar incident was officially registered and entered the annals of aviation: near Milan (Italy), the Frenchman Rene Thomas and the Englishman Bertram Dixon \ Bertram Dikson collided - both pilots survived.

The first transport flight was made. American pilot Philip Palmalee transported a cargo of silk from the city of Dayton to the city of Columbus. Morehouse-Martens became the world's first air cargo customer.

The American firm American Airplane Manufacturing Company for the first time in the world organized tailoring of uniforms for pilots.

1911 For the first time in the world, a group of passengers of more than 10 people took to the air. The plane was piloted by the French pilot and inventor Louis Breguet, who delivered his passengers to a distance of 5 km.

The first non-stop international flight with passengers on board was made. Frenchman Pierre Prieur made a flight from London to Paris, the journey took 3 hours and 45 minutes.

British aviator Tom Sopwith made the world's first charter flight. Wanamaker hired him to deliver a pair of glasses for a passenger on the Olympic. Olympic left New York Harbor and moved several miles offshore, Sopwith caught up with him and dropped a bag of goggles onto the deck.

Start of airmail. The first such flight was made in Italy - a plane loaded with letters and parcels flew around three cities - Bologna, Venice and Rimini.

In the United States, air mail delivery began along a predetermined route: once a week, correspondence began to be delivered from the city of Mineola to the city of Long Island.

1913 Inventor Igor Sikorsky built the first passenger plane ("Russian Knight"), equipped with a toilet. At that time, the Russian Knight was the largest aircraft in the world, its wingspan was 28 meters.

1914 Start passenger aviation. American company St. Petersburg Tampa Airboat Line for the first time in the world created a flight schedule from the city of St. Petersburg to the city of Tampa (located in Florida, on opposite shores of the bay). The first passenger to buy such a ticket was the mayor of St. Petersburg - he bought it at an auction for a fantastically high price - $400 (a regular ticket cost $5).

Beginning of transport aviation. In South-West Africa (now Namibia), regular flights began to deliver diamonds from the town of Karibib (the center of diamond mines) to Windhoek (the administrative capital).

1917 The Italian Post issued the first airmail stamps in the world.

1918 The world's first regular delivery of international air mail was organized in Austria: correspondence was delivered along the route: Vienna - Lemberg (now Ukrainian Lviv) - Krakow (now Poland, then de jure part of Russia) - Proskurov (now Ukraine, then Russia) - Odessa ( now Ukraine, then Russia). A little later, Budapest was added to these cities. At the end of the year, due to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this service ceased to exist.

1919 The first international passenger airline was opened between Paris (France) and Brussels (Belgium). It was created by Lignes A?riennes Farman. The flight took 2 hours 50 minutes.

For the first time in the world, Brussels introduced the practice of customs screening of air passengers.

For the first time, air passengers were offered drinks and cold snacks.

The League of Nations (the forerunner of the UN) adopted the Paris Convention, which for the first time in the world regulated the system international flights and rules for the registration of aircraft.

1922 In the United States, the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory conducted the first successful radar test.

1923 In the USA for the first time in the world runways Began to equip signal lights.

1926 Deutsche Lufthansa, the oldest passenger carrier in existence, is formed. In 1934, it was the first airline in the world to carry its millionth passenger.

1927 For the first time in the world, a passenger is delivered on board an aircraft across the ocean (Atlantic). Businessman Charles Levine flew from New York to Eisleben (Germany).

1930 American nurse Ellen Church \\ Ellen Church became the world's first flight attendant. She was hired by United Airlines (still in existence). On the first flight, the stewardess served 11 passengers. Two months later, United Airlines decided that flight attendants were required to service all of their aircraft. This was due to the fact that for the first time in the world they began to feed passengers on airplanes with hot meals. The first flight menu consisted of fruit cocktail, fried chicken, biscuits, tea and coffee. In subsequent years, this experience was picked up by other airlines.

1932 For the first time in the world, a "blind" air flight was made - the pilot was guided solely by the readings of the instruments (the flight was made by the American pilot Albert Hegenberger on a training aircraft).

1928 The first autopilot was created in the UK.

1939 Jet engines were successfully tested on a German He-178 aircraft for the first time.

1945 The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has been formed in Havana (Cuba).

The United States has established the world's first air traffic control center.

1947 Educated International Organization Civil Aviation\ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) headquartered in Montreal (Canada).

For the first time in the world, a special in-flight magazine, the Clipper, was released (it was provided to passengers by the American airline Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am).

1952 Appearance passenger airliner in the modern sense of the word - Comet 1. It was created in France.

1958 In Australia, the research organization Aeronautical Research Laboratories for the first time created a "black box", which is now installed on absolutely all aircraft and captures the conversations of pilots and instrument readings.

In aircraft flying across the Atlantic Ocean, gradation was introduced for the first time passenger seats. There was an economy class.

1961 The American airline Trans World Airlines (TWA) was the first in the world to show movies during the flight. The first screening was held during a flight from New York to Los Angeles. The reason for the appearance of this service was the views of the then owner of the airline - an eccentric businessman Howard Hughes \\ Howard Hughes, who was very fond of cinema and produced films himself.

1962 Trans World Airlines was the first in the world to allow passengers to make phone calls from an aircraft (the first route where such calls became available was St. Louis-Chicago).

1968 The USSR produced the world's first supersonic passenger aircraft - Tu-144.

Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked a passenger plane of the Israeli airline El Al and hijacked it to Algiers. It was the first capture in history passenger aircraft Palestinian terrorist group. The passengers and crew of the plane were held hostage for six weeks. After that and similar incidents In many countries of the world, air marshals have appeared who are secretly on board the aircraft and are called upon to control safety in the cabin.

1970 World's first released in the USA wide body airliner- Boeing 747, in the image and likeness of which all large passenger aircraft are now produced.

1973 The world's first baggage distribution system was created at Memphis Airport (USA) - baggage and other cargo were distributed using a system of conveyors.

1988 American airline Northwest Airlines for the first time installed TV screens on the backs of passenger seats. The aircraft flying from Detroit to Tokyo were the first to be provided with such a service.