Jet supersonic aircraft. Russian aviation at a glance. Civil aviation, like the military, quickly switched to the use of jet aircraft.

The idea of ​​Russian President Vladimir Putin, inspired by the flight of the new "White Swan", to create a supersonic aircraft made not only the employees of the Kazan Aircraft Building Plant think, but many other observers as well. Can a missile carrier inspire designers to create new types of supersonic aircraft?

The largest and most powerful supersonic aircraft Tu-160 in the history of military aviation, known to many by the nickname "White Swan", has recently received a new life. For the first time in many years, the Kazan Aircraft Building Plant presented to the public an updated Tu-160M ​​bomber named after the first Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Pyotr Deinekin.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces and Russian President Vladimir Putin personally observed the first flight of the missile carrier. The head of state was deeply impressed by the flight of the new White Swan and highly appreciated the professionalism of the pilots who performed the maneuver, asking them to thank the pilots even before the aircraft landed. There was nothing surprising in the president's emotions, since Putin himself piloted the Tu-160 missile carrier back in 2005.

Upon completion of the flight, the president proposed to Kazan aircraft designers to create a version of the passenger supersonic Lebed for civil aviation based on the new Tu-160M.

But in order to understand how realistic it is to implement the idea of ​​Vladimir Putin, one should turn to the history of Russian aviation and remember what steps aircraft designers have already taken in this direction.

Tu-144

One of the biggest industrial successes in the history of Russia was the creation of the Tu-144 aircraft. It was made long before the Tu-160 and became the first supersonic passenger airliner in the history of mankind. In addition, the Tu-144 is still one of the two types of supersonic passenger aircraft known to history.

The airliner was created on the instructions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, issued on July 19, 1963. Serious demands were placed on the first supersonic passenger aircraft. The aircraft had to be capable of flying at a cruising speed of 2,300 to 2,700 km/h for a distance of up to 4,500 kilometers, while carrying up to 100 passengers on board.

The Tupolev Design Bureau created the first prototype of the aircraft in 1965. Three years later, the aircraft took to the skies for the first time, two months ahead of its main and only competitor, the famous British-French Concorde.

The Tu-144 had a number of design features that even externally markedly distinguished it from other aircraft. There were no flaps and slats on its wings: the aircraft slowed down due to the deviating nose of the fuselage. In addition, the ancestor of modern GPS navigators was installed on the airliner - the PINO system (Projection indicator of the navigation situation), which projected the necessary coordinates onto the screen from the filmstrip.

However, due to the too high costs of operating and maintaining the airliner, the Soviet Union abandoned the further production of the Tu-144. By the time production was abandoned, only 16 aircraft survived, two of which were later destroyed as a result of the infamous accident at the international air show in Le Bourget in 1973 and in the crash over Yegoryevsk in 1978. At the moment, there are only eight assembled aircraft left in the world, three of which can be fully restored and are ready for further use.

SPS-2 and Tu-244

Photo: Stahlkocher / wikimedia.org

Another project on which serious expectations were placed was the SPS-2, which was later given the promising name Tu-244 by the developer, the Tupolev Design Bureau.

The first information about the work on the second generation supersonic passenger airliner dates back to approximately 1971 - 1973 of the last century.

When developing the Tu-224, the designers took into account both the experience of creating and operating its predecessors - the Tu-144 and Concorde, and the Tu-160, as well as American projects of supersonic aircraft.

As conceived by the developers of the SPS-2, the new airliner was supposed to lose the main "calling card" of its predecessor - the forward fuselage deflected downward. In addition, the cockpit glazing area had to be reduced to a minimum sufficient for review. For takeoff and landing of the aircraft, it was planned to use an optical-electronic review system.

Also, the designed aircraft had to rise to a height of up to 20 kilometers and fit on board about 300 passengers. To achieve such parameters, it was necessary to dramatically increase its size in all respects, which was planned to be done: with a fuselage length of almost 90 meters and a wingspan of about 50 meters, the Tu-244 would look like a giant against the background of any existing analogues.

But the maximum speed of the airliner, in comparison with its predecessors, practically remained the same: the speed limit of the SPS-2 did not exceed 2500 km / h. In contrast, it was planned to increase the maximum flight distance to about 9000 kilometers by reducing fuel consumption.

However, the production of such a supersonic heavyweight in the realities of the modern world turned out to be economically impractical. Due to the increased requirements for environmental standards, the cost of operating such a Tu-244 aircraft at the moment is unbearable both for the aircraft manufacturer itself and for the country's economy as a whole.

Tu-344 and Tu-444

These aircraft were developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau (later Tupolev JSC, now Tupolev PJSC) as a response to the growing global demand for fast and small business class aircraft. So there were various projects of SBS - supersonic business aircraft.

Such aircraft were supposed to be small in size and able to carry about 10 passengers. The first SBS project from Tupolev - Tu-344 - was planned to be manufactured back in the 90s of the last century on the basis of the Tu-22M3 military supersonic bomber. But its development turned out to be a failure in the initial stages, since for international flights the aircraft also had to meet high requirements in the field, which it did not meet already in the early stages of project development. Therefore, the designer refused further work on the creation of the Tu-344.

Work on the project of his successor - the Tu-444 - began in the early 2000s, its development reached the stage of the first sketches. Despite the fact that the problems in the field of ecology were solved, the implementation of the project required the attraction of large financial investments, but Tupolev failed to find investors interested in this.

S-21 (SSBJ)

Photo: Slangcamm / wikimedia.org

The only domestic project to create a supersonic aircraft for civil aviation, which was not developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau, was the project of the C-21 aircraft, also known as the Sukhoi Supersonic Business Jet (SSBJ).

Work on this project of the Sukhoi Design Bureau began in the 80s. The design bureau understood that the demand for large supersonic airliners had fallen since the time of the Concorde and Tu-144 and would only decrease in the future for reasons of economy. Therefore, Sukhoi designers were among the first to come up with the idea of ​​creating a supersonic business aircraft designed for non-stop flights between world capitals.

But the development of the S-21 was prevented by the collapse of the USSR, with which state funding for the project ceased.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sukhoi tried for many years to attract private investors to the project in Russia and abroad. The volume of incoming investments made it possible to conduct the first tests of engines for the S-21 in 1993.

But to complete the creation and start mass production of the aircraft, according to Mikhail Simonov, who was at that time the head of Sukhoi, another one billion US dollars was required, but the company could not find new investors.

supersonic aircraft

supersonic aircraft

aircraft, the design and flight performance of which allow flights at speeds exceeding . Unlike aircraft flying at subsonic speeds, supersonic aircraft have a swept or triangular (in plan) wing shape, pointed fuselage nose and leading edges of the wing and tail, as well as thinner. All supersonic aircraft are equipped with jet (mainly air-jet, less often rocket) engines. Due to the large inflows of heat due to aerodynamic heating of the surface at supersonic speeds, forced cooling of the cockpit, passenger compartment and cargo compartments is used in such aircraft (instead of their heating, which is necessary on subsonic aircraft). On an SR-71A (USA) aircraft with a turbojet engine, a speed of 3220 km / h was reached, and an experimental one with a rocket engine (rocket plane) X-15A-2 (USA) reached a speed of 7297 km / h. Of domestic aircraft, for example, the MiG-31 develops a speed of 3000 km / h. Supersonic aircraft are used by Ch. arr. in military aviation (fighters, bombers). The first and so far the only civilian aircraft capable of flying at supersonic speeds were created in con. 1960s - Tu-144 (USSR) and "" (France - Great Britain).

Encyclopedia "Technology". - M.: Rosman. 2006 .

supersonic aircraft

an aircraft whose operating conditions provide for speeds exceeding the speed of sound. concept "S. With." in the 1950s is caused by a significant difference in geometric shapes that provide optimal flight at sub- and supersonic flight speeds. Thus, for example, on subsonic aircraft, the forward parts of the wing profile and empennage, the forward parts of the fuselage, and the inlets of the engine air intakes are made blunt for a more complete realization of the suction force, while on the S. with. they are made pointed to reduce wave resistance.
S. s. are used mainly in military aviation (fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, etc.); at the end of the 60s. the first S. with are created. civil purpose ( cm.). S. s. equipped with jet engines (mainly jet engines) and are distinguished by a low aspect ratio of the wing (()3-3.5) and a small relative thickness of the wing profile , passenger compartments and compartments with equipment.

Aviation: Encyclopedia. - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia. Chief editor G.P. Svishchev. 1994 .

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Supersonic airliner Tu-144: flight performance- On December 31, 1968, an experimental supersonic aircraft Tu 144 (USSR tail number 68001) made its first flight. The Tu 144 managed to take off two months earlier than its Anglo-French competitor, the Concord airliner, which made its first flight on 2 ... ... Encyclopedia of Newsmakers

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TASS-DOSIER. On January 25, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to the Kazan Aviation Plant. S. P. Gorbunova (a branch of PJSC "Tupolev") was present at the demonstration flight of the new supersonic strategic missile carrier Tu-160 "Pyotr Deinekin" and proposed to create a civilian version of this aircraft.

The TASS-DOSIER editors have prepared a certificate on domestic and foreign programs for the creation of supersonic passenger airliners.

Start of development

Research in the field of supersonic civil aviation began in the UK, France and the United States in the late 1950s. The first draft designs of the corresponding passenger airliners appeared in the West in the early 1960s. At the same time, the Soviet Union began to develop its own supersonic aircraft.

Tu-144

On July 16, 1963, a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the creation of the Tu-144 supersonic passenger aircraft with four jet engines and on the construction of a batch of such aircraft" was issued by the Design Bureau of A. N. Tupolev. The overall project management was carried out by the design bureau general designer Andrey Tupolev, and after his death in 1972, the designer's son, Alexei Tupolev.

The prototype Tu-144 (tail number USSR-68001) made its first flight on December 31, 1968.

The production of serial copies of the Tu-144 was launched at the Voronezh Aviation Plant (now PJSC "VASO" as part of the UAC). In total, from 1972 to 1984, 17 serial machines were produced, of which three passed static tests, 14 were operated (including two with passengers), two crashed in plane crashes, one was never completed. Between November 1977 and May 1978, two Tu-144s made 55 flights between Moscow and Alma-Ata, carrying a total of 3,284 passengers.

In 1978, after the second disaster, the operation of the Tu-144 was discontinued, and the program itself was curtailed. Work on the creation of a modification of the Tu-144DA (with an increased flight range) was not developed.

Concorde

Aerospatiale / BAC Concorde ("Concorde", from French "consent") since 1962 was created by the French company Aerospatiale together with the British Aircraft Corporation. The prototype (registration number - F-WTSS) took off two months after the first flight of the Tu-144 - March 2, 1969.

In total, 20 copies of the aircraft were built in 1965-1979. 14 of them were operated by Air France and British Airways between 1976 and 2003 on regular passenger lines: mainly for transatlantic flights on routes to New York from Paris and London. On average, the plane covered the distance between Paris and New York in 3.5 hours.

During the entire period of operation of Concorde, one disaster occurred with aircraft of this type. On July 25, 2000, while taking off from Paris, an Air France aircraft with registration number F-BTSC crashed due to a foreign object on the runway. Then 109 people on board and four people on the ground died.

In just 27 years of operation, Concorde has carried more than 2.5 million passengers. Finally, Air France and British Airways refused to operate aircraft of this type due to the decline in passenger traffic caused by the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, the growing cost of maintaining aircraft in flight readiness and the lack of prospects for their modernization.

American program in the 1960s

On June 5, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy announced the launch of a national program to create a supersonic passenger airliner, offering to compensate 75% of the development company's costs at the expense of the state. The goal of the program was to compete with the Concorde project. Boeing, Lockheed and North American corporations expressed their intention to create a new aircraft, offering, respectively, the Boeing 2707, Lockheed L-2000 projects and the civilian version of the XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber.

The most promising was the Boeing 2707 project, a wide-body airliner designed to carry 277 passengers over a distance of up to 7.8 thousand km at a speed of 2,900 km/h. A full-scale model of the aircraft was built, Boeing received 120 orders from US airlines.

However, in 1971, it became obvious that the American program lagged behind the European Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144. As a result, the US Congress stopped funding it. Boeing and other companies refused to continue it at their own expense.

Other projects

The experience of the Tu-144 and Concorde programs has shown that the operation of aircraft of this type has a number of disadvantages compared to conventional, subsonic airliners. In particular, due to the high fuel consumption and high cost of maintaining supersonic passenger airliners, it is very difficult to make it profitable. It also failed to solve problems with the noise of aircraft engines, as well as explosion-like sonic booms at the time of transition to supersonic.

However, research in this area continues to this day. So, in 2016, the American Boom Technology announced the development of a 40-seat aircraft capable of covering the distance between Los Angeles and Sydney in six hours. The American companies Aerion and Lockheed Martin are working on a project of a three-engine supersonic business jet Aerion AS2 for 12 passengers, the first deliveries of which are scheduled for 2023. Another American company Spike Aerospace plans to certify in the same 2023 its business jet Spike S-512, designed to carry 18 passengers.

The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI, city of Zhukovsky, Moscow region) presented at the international aerospace show MAKS-2017 a model of a supersonic business jet that can be created within the next ten years. Among the canceled projects of this kind are the Sukhoi Supersonic Business Jet, Tu-344 (a business jet based on the Tu-22M3 missile carrier), Tu-444, etc., the NASA High Speed ​​Civil Transport program (1990-1999).

Tu-144 is a Soviet supersonic aircraft developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 1960s. Along with the Concorde, it is one of only two supersonic airliners ever to be used by airlines for commercial purposes.

In the 60s, aviation circles in the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR actively discussed projects for the creation of a passenger supersonic aircraft with a maximum speed of 2500-3000 km / h, a flight range of at least 6-8 thousand km. In November 1962, France and Great Britain signed an agreement on the joint development and construction of the Concorde (Consent).

The creators of the supersonic aircraft

In the Soviet Union, the design bureau of academician Andrey Tupolev was engaged in the creation of a supersonic aircraft. At a preliminary meeting of the Design Bureau in January 1963, Tupolev stated:

“Thinking about the future of air transportation of people from one continent to another, you come to an unequivocal conclusion: supersonic airliners are undoubtedly needed, and I have no doubt that they will come into life ...”

The son of the academician, Alexei Tupolev, was appointed the lead designer of the project. More than a thousand specialists from other organizations closely cooperated with his design bureau. The creation was preceded by extensive theoretical and experimental work, including numerous tests in wind tunnels and natural conditions during analogue flights.

Concorde and Tu-144

The developers had to rack their brains to find the optimal machine layout. The speed of the designed liner is of fundamental importance - 2500 or 3000 km/h. The Americans, having learned that the Concorde is designed for 2500 km / h, said that they would release their passenger Boeing 2707, made of steel and titanium, only six months later. Only these materials withstood the heating of the structure in contact with the air flow at speeds of 3000 km/h and above without destructive consequences. However, solid steel and titanium structures still have to undergo serious technological and operational testing. This will take a long time, and Tupolev decides to build a supersonic aircraft from duralumin, based on a speed of 2500 km / h. The American Boeing project was subsequently closed altogether.

In June 1965, the model was shown at the annual Paris Air Show. Concorde and Tu-144 turned out to be strikingly similar to each other. Soviet designers said - nothing surprising: the general shape is determined by the laws of aerodynamics and the requirements for a certain type of machine.

supersonic aircraft wing shape

But what should be the shape of the wing? We settled on a thin triangular wing with an outline of the leading edge in the form of the letter "8". The tailless scheme - inevitable with such a design of the carrier plane - made the supersonic liner stable and well controlled in all flight modes. Four engines were located under the fuselage, closer to the axis. Fuel is placed in caisson wing tanks. Balance tanks, located at the rear of the fuselage and wing bulges, are designed to change the position of the center of gravity during the transition from subsonic flight speed to supersonic. The nose was made sharp and smooth. But how in this case to provide pilots with a forward view? They found a way out - “bowing nose”. The circular section fuselage had a cockpit nose cone deflecting downward at an angle of 12 degrees during takeoff and 17 degrees during landing.

Supersonic aircraft takes to the sky

The first supersonic aircraft takes to the skies on the last day of 1968. The machine was driven by test pilot E. Yelyan. As a passenger aircraft, he was the first in the world to overcome the speed of sound in early June 1969, being at an altitude of 11 kilometers. The supersonic aircraft took the second speed of sound (2M) in the middle of 1970, being at an altitude of 16.3 kilometers. The supersonic aircraft incorporated many design and technical innovations. Here I would like to note such a decision as the front horizontal tail. When using the PGO, the flight maneuverability was improved and the speed was extinguished during the landing approach. The domestic supersonic aircraft could be operated from two dozen airports, while the French-English Concorde, having a high landing speed, could land only at a certified airport. The designers of the Tupolev Design Bureau did a tremendous job. Take, for example, field tests of the wing. They took place on a flying laboratory - the MiG-21I, specially converted for testing the design and equipment of the wing of the future supersonic aircraft.

Development and modification

Work on the development of the basic design "044" went in two directions: the creation of a new economical non-afterburning turbojet engine of the RD-36-51 type and a significant improvement in the aerodynamics and design of a supersonic aircraft. The result of this was to meet the requirements for the range of supersonic flight. The decision of the commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the variant of a supersonic aircraft with RD-36-51 was adopted in 1969. At the same time, at the suggestion of the MAP - MGA, a decision is made, until the creation of the RD-36-51 and their installation on a supersonic aircraft, to build six supersonic aircraft with NK-144A with reduced specific fuel consumption. The design of serial supersonic aircraft with the NK-144A was supposed to be significantly modernized, to carry out significant changes in aerodynamics, having received Kmax more than 8 in supersonic cruising mode. series on RD-36-51.

Construction of a modernized supersonic aircraft

The construction of the pre-production modernized Tu-144 ("004") began at the MMZ "Experience" in 1968. According to the calculated data with NK-144 engines (Cp = 2.01), the expected supersonic range should have been 3275 km, and with NK-144A (Cp = 1.91) it should have exceeded 3500 km. In order to improve the aerodynamic characteristics in cruising mode М=2.2, the wing shape was changed in plan (the swept part along the leading edge was reduced to 76°, and the base one was increased to 57°), the wing shape became closer to the "Gothic". Compared to the "044", the wing area has increased, a more intense conical twist of the wing end parts has been introduced. However, the most important innovation in aerodynamics of the wing was the change in the middle part of the wing, which provided self-balancing in cruise mode with minimal loss of quality, taking into account optimization for flight deformations of the wing in this mode. The length of the fuselage was increased to accommodate 150 passengers, the shape of the bow was improved, which also had a positive effect on aerodynamics.

Unlike the "044", each pair of engines in twin engine nacelles with air intakes was moved apart, freeing the lower part of the fuselage from them, unloading it from increased temperature and vibration loads, while changing the lower surface of the wing in the place of the calculated flow compression area, increasing the gap between the lower surface of the wing and the upper surface of the air intake - all this made it possible to more intensively use the effect of preloading the flow at the inlet to the air intakes at Kmax than it was possible to get on "044". The new layout of the engine nacelles required changes in the chassis: the main landing gear was placed under the engine nacelles, with their cleaning inside between the air channels of the engines, they switched to an eight-wheeled bogie, and the scheme for cleaning the nose landing gear also changed. An important difference between “004” and “044” was the introduction of a front multi-section destabilizer wing retractable in flight, which was extended from the fuselage in takeoff and landing modes, and made it possible to provide the required balancing with deflected elevon flaps. Design improvements, an increase in the payload and fuel supply led to an increase in take-off weight, which exceeded 190 tons (for "044" - 150 tons).

Pre-production Tu-144

The construction of the pre-production supersonic aircraft No. 01-1 (tail number 77101) was completed at the beginning of 1971, on June 1, 1971 it made its first flight. According to the factory test program, the machine completed 231 flights, lasting 338 hours, of which 55 hours flew supersonic. On this machine, complex issues were worked out - questions of the interaction of the power plant in various flight modes. On September 20, 1972, the car made a flight along the Moscow-Tashkent route, while the route was completed in 1 hour 50 minutes, cruising speed during the flight reached 2500 km / h. The pre-production machine became the basis for the deployment of mass production at the Voronezh Aviation Plant (VAZ), which, by decision of the government, was entrusted with the development of a supersonic aircraft in a series.

The first flight of the serial Tu-144

The first flight of a serial supersonic aircraft No. 01-2 (tail number 77102) with NK-144A engines took place on March 20, 1972. In the series, according to the results of tests of the pre-production machine, the aerodynamics of the wing was corrected and its area was slightly increased again. The take-off weight in the series reached 195 tons. The specific fuel consumption of NK-144A by the time of operational testing of serial machines was intended to be increased to 1.65-1.67 kg / kgf hour by optimizing the engine nozzle, and later up to 1.57 kg / kgf hour, while the flight range should was to increase to 3855-4250 km and 4550 km respectively. By 1977, during testing and refinement of the Tu-144 and NK-144A series, we were actually able to achieve Cp = 1.81 kg / kgf hour in the cruising supersonic thrust mode of 5000 kgf, Cp = 1.65 kg / kgf hour in the takeoff afterburner thrust mode 20,000 kgf, Cp=0.92 kg/kgf hour in cruising subsonic thrust mode of 3000 kgf and in maximum afterburner mode in transonic mode received 11800 kgf. Fragment of a supersonic aircraft.

Flights and tests of supersonic aircraft

First stage of testing

In a short period of time, in strict accordance with the program, 395 flights were performed with a total flight time of 739 hours, including more than 430 hours in supersonic modes.

Second stage of testing

At the second stage of operational testing, in accordance with the joint order of the ministers of the aviation industry and civil aviation dated September 13, 1977 No. 149-223, there was a more active connection of civil aviation facilities and services. A new testing commission was formed, headed by Deputy Minister of Civil Aviation B.D. Rough. By decision of the commission, then confirmed by a joint order of September 30 - October 5, 1977, crews were appointed to conduct operational tests:

1. First crew: pilots B.F. Kuznetsov (Moscow Transport Administration of the Civil Aviation), S.T. Agapov (ZhLIiDB), navigator S.P. Khramov (MTU GA), flight engineers Yu.N. Avaev (MTU GA), Yu.T. Seliverstov (ZhLIiDB), lead engineer S.P. Avakimov (ZhLIiDB).
2. The second crew: pilots V.P. Voronin (MGU GA), I.K. Vedernikov (ZhLIiDB), navigator A.A. Senyuk (MTU GA), flight engineers E.A. Trebuntsov (MTU GA) and V.V. Solomatin (ZhLIiDB), lead engineer V.V. Isaev (GosNIIGA).
3. The third crew: pilots M.S. Kuznetsov (GosNIIGA), G.V. Voronchenko (ZhLIiDB), navigator V.V. Vyazigin (GosNIIGA), flight engineers M.P. Isaev (MTU GA), V.V. Solomatin (ZhLIiDB), leading engineer V.N. Poklad (ZhLIiDB).
4. The fourth crew: pilots N.I. Yurskov (GosNIIGA), V.A. Sevankaev (ZhLIiDB), navigator Yu.A. Vasiliev (GosNIIGA), flight engineer V.L. Venediktov (GosNIIGA), leading engineer I.S. Mayboroda (GosNIIGA).

Prior to the start of the tests, a lot of work was done to review all the materials received in order to use them “for offsetting” the fulfillment of specific requirements. However, despite this, some civil aviation experts insisted on the implementation of the "Program of operational tests of a supersonic aircraft", developed at GosNIIGA back in 1975 under the leadership of the lead engineer A.M. Teteryukov. This program required, in fact, the repetition of previously completed flights in the amount of 750 flights (1200 flight hours) on the MGA routes.

The total volume of operational flights and tests for both stages will amount to 445 flights with 835 flight hours, of which 475 hours are in supersonic modes. 128 paired flights were performed on the Moscow-Alma-Ata route.

The final stage

The final stage of testing was not strenuous from a technical point of view. Rhythmic work on schedule was provided without serious failures and major defects. The engineering and technical staff "had fun" assessing household equipment, preparing for passenger transportation. The flight attendants involved in the tests and the relevant specialists of the State Research Institute of Civil Aviation began to conduct ground training to work out the technology of servicing passengers in flight. The so-called. "jokes" and two technical flights with passengers. The "Raffle" was held on October 16, 1977, with a complete simulation of the ticket check-in, baggage check-in, passenger boarding, flight of real duration, passenger disembarkation, baggage check-in at the destination airport. From the "passengers" (the best employees of the Design Bureau, ZhLIiDB, GosNIIGA and other organizations) there was no end. The diet during the "flight" was at the highest level, since it was approved by the first class menu, everyone enjoyed it very much. The "draw" made it possible to clarify many important elements and details of passenger service. On October 20 and 21, 1977, two technical flights were made along the Moscow-Alma-Ata route with passengers. The first passengers were employees of many organizations who were directly involved in the creation and testing of a supersonic aircraft. Today it is even difficult to imagine the atmosphere on board: there was a sense of joy and pride, great hope for development against the backdrop of first-class service, to which technical people are absolutely not accustomed. In the first flights, all the heads of leading institutions and organizations were on board.

The road for passenger traffic is open

The technical flights passed without serious remarks and showed the full readiness of the supersonic aircraft and all ground services for regular transportation. On October 25, 1977, the Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR B.P. Bugaev and Minister of Aviation Industry of the USSR V.A. Kazakov approved the main document: “Act on the results of operational tests of a supersonic aircraft with NK-144 engines” with a positive conclusion and conclusions.

On the basis of the presented tables of Tu-144 compliance with the requirements of the Interim Airworthiness Standards for civilian Tu-144s of the USSR, the full amount of evidence presented, including acts on state and operational tests, on October 29, 1977, the chairman of the State Aviation Register of the USSR I.K. Mulkidzhanov approved the conclusion and signed the USSR's first airworthiness certificate type No. 03-144 for a supersonic aircraft with NK-144A engines.

The road for passenger traffic was open.

The supersonic aircraft could land and take off at 18 airports in the USSR, while Concorde, whose takeoff and landing speed was 15% faster, required a separate landing certificate for each airport. According to some experts, if the Concorde engines were placed in the same way as those of the Tu-144, then the accident on July 25, 2000 would not have occurred.

According to experts, the design of the Tu-144 airframe was perfect, but the flaws concerned engines and various systems.

The second serial copy of the supersonic aircraft

In June 1973, the 30th International Paris Air Show took place in France. The interest caused by the Soviet liner Tu-144, the world's first supersonic aircraft, was enormous. On June 2, thousands of visitors to the air show in the suburbs of Paris, Le Bourget, watched the second serial copy of the supersonic aircraft take to the runway. The roar of four engines, a powerful takeoff - and now the car is in the air. The sharp nose of the liner straightened and aimed at the sky. The supersonic Tu, piloted by Captain Kozlov, made its first demonstration flight over Paris: having gained the necessary height, the car went beyond the horizon, then returned and made a circle over the airfield. The flight took place in normal mode, no technical problems were noted.

The next day, the Soviet crew decided to show everything that the new one was capable of.

Disaster during demonstration

The sunny morning of June 3 did not seem to portend trouble. At first, everything went according to plan, - the audience, raising their heads, applauded in unison. The supersonic aircraft, having shown the "highest class", went down. At that moment, a French Mirage fighter appeared in the air (as it turned out later, he was filming an air show). A collision seemed inevitable. In order not to crash into the airfield and the spectators, the crew commander decided to climb higher and pulled the steering wheel towards himself. However, the height was already lost, large loads were created on the structure; as a result, the right wing cracked and fell off. A fire started there, and a few seconds later, a blazing supersonic aircraft rushed to the ground. A terrible landing occurred on one of the streets of the Parisian suburb of Goosenville. The giant machine, destroying everything in its path, crashed to the ground and exploded. The entire crew - six people - and eight Frenchmen on the ground were killed. Goosenville also suffered - several buildings were destroyed. What led to the tragedy? According to most experts, the cause of the disaster was an attempt by the crew of a supersonic aircraft to avoid a collision with the Mirage. When landing, the Tu got into a wake from the French Mirage fighter.

Video: Tu-144 crash in 1973: how it was

This version is given in Gene Alexander's book "Russian Aircraft since 1944" and in a June 11, 1973 article in Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, written in fresh pursuit. The authors believe that pilot Mikhail Kozlov landed on the wrong runway - either by mistake of the flight director, or by the carelessness of the pilots. The controller noticed the mistake in time and warned the Soviet pilots. But instead of going to the second circle, Kozlov laid a sharp turn - and ended up right in front of the nose of the French Air Force fighter. The co-pilot at that time was filming a story about the crew of the Tu for French television with a movie camera and therefore was not wearing a seat belt. During the maneuver, he fell on the center console, and by the time he returned to his place, he had already lost height. Kozlov sharply pulled the steering wheel towards himself - overload: the right wing could not stand it. And here is another explanation for the terrible tragedy. Kozlov was ordered to squeeze the maximum out of the car. Even during takeoff, at low speed, he took almost a vertical angle. For a liner with such a configuration, this is fraught with huge overloads. As a result, one of the external nodes could not stand it and fell off.

According to A.N. Tupolev Design Bureau employees, the cause of the disaster was the connection of a poorly tuned analog control system unit, which led to a destructive overload.

The spy version belongs to the writer James Ahlberg. In short, it is. The Soviets tried to "furnish" the Concorde. Group N.D. Kuznetsova created good engines, but they could not work at low temperatures, unlike the Concorde ones. Then the Soviet intelligence officers got involved. Penkovsky, through his agent Greville Wine, obtained some of the drawings for the Concorde and sent them to Moscow through an East German trade representative. British counterintelligence thus established the leak, but instead of arresting the spy, they decided to let misinformation into Moscow through his own channels. As a result, the Tu-144 was born, very similar to the Concorde. It is difficult to establish the truth, since the "black boxes" did not clarify anything. One was found in Bourges, at the crash site, however, judging by reports, damaged. The second was never found. There is an opinion that the "black box" of the supersonic aircraft has become the subject of contention between the KGB and the GRU.

According to the pilots, emergency situations occurred in almost every flight. On May 23, 1978, the second crash of a supersonic aircraft occurred. An improved experimental version of the liner, Tu-144D (No. 77111), after a fuel fire in the area of ​​​​the engine nacelle of the 3rd power plant due to the destruction of the fuel line, smoke in the cabin and the shutdown of two engines by the crew, made an emergency landing in a field near the village of Ilyinsky Pogost, not far from the city Yegoryevsk.

After landing, the crew commander V.D. Popov, co-pilot E.V. Elyan and navigator V.V. Vyazigin left the liner through the cockpit window. Engineers V. M. Kulesh, V. A. Isaev, V. N. Stolpovsky, who were in the cabin, left the liner through the front entrance door. Flight engineers O. A. Nikolaev and V. L. Venediktov were caught in the workplace by structures deformed during landing and died. (The deflected nose cone touched the ground first, worked like a bulldozer knife, gaining ground, and turned under the belly, entering the fuselage.) On June 1, 1978, Aeroflot permanently stopped supersonic passenger flights.

Improvement of the supersonic aircraft

Work on improving the supersonic aircraft continued for several more years. Five serial aircraft produced; five more were under construction. A new modification has been developed - Tu-144D (long-range). However, the choice of a new engine (more economical), RD-36-51, required a significant redesign of the aircraft, especially the power plant. Serious design gaps in this area led to a delay in the release of the new liner. Only in November 1974, the serial Tu-144D (tail number 77105) took off, and nine (!) years after its first flight, on November 1, 1977, the supersonic aircraft received an airworthiness certificate. On the same day, passenger flights were opened. During their short operation, the liners carried 3194 passengers. On May 31, 1978, flights were stopped: a fire broke out on one of the serial Tu-144Ds, and the liner crashed, crashing during an emergency landing.

The catastrophes in Paris and Yegorievsk led to the fact that the state's interest in the project decreased. From 1977 to 1978, 600 problems were identified. As a result, already in the 80s, it was decided to remove the supersonic aircraft, explaining this by "bad effects on people's health when crossing the sound barrier." Nevertheless, four of the five Tu-144Ds that were in production were nevertheless completed. Later they were based in Zhukovsky and took to the air as flying laboratories. In total, 16 supersonic aircraft were built (including long-range modifications), which made a total of 2556 sorties. By the mid-90s, ten of them had survived: four in museums (Monino, Kazan, Kuibyshev, Ulyanovsk); one remained at the plant in Voronezh, where it was built; another was in Zhukovsky along with four Tu-144Ds.

Subsequently, the Tu-144D was used only for cargo transportation between Moscow and Khabarovsk. In total, the supersonic aircraft made 102 flights under the flag of Aeroflot, of which 55 were passenger flights (3,194 passengers were carried).

Later, supersonic aircraft made only test flights and a few flights with the goal of setting world records.

On the Tu-144LL engines NK-32 were installed due to the lack of serviceable NK-144 or RD-36-51, similar to those used on the Tu-160, various sensors and test control and recording equipment.

A total of 16 Tu-144 liners were built, which made a total of 2,556 sorties and flew 4,110 hours (among them, 77144 flew the most, 432 hours). The construction of four more liners was never completed.

What happened to the planes

A total of 16 were built - boards 68001, 77101, 77102, 77105, 77106, 77107, 77108, 77109, 77110, 77111, 77112, 77113, 77114, 77115, 77116 and 77144.

Those remaining in flying condition do not currently exist. The sides of Tu-144LL No. 77114 and Tu-144D No. 77115 are almost fully equipped with parts and can be restored to flight condition.

TU-144LL No. 77114, which was used for NASA tests, is stored in a recoverable state at the airfield in Zhukovsky.

TU-144D No. 77115 is also stored at the airfield in Zhukovsky. In 2007, both liners were repainted and put on public display at the MAKS-2007 air show.

No. 77114 and No. 77115 will most likely be installed as monuments or exhibited at the airfield in Zhukovsky. In 2004-2005, some deals were made with them to sell them for scrap, but the protests of the aviation community led to their preservation. The danger of selling them for scrap has not been completely eliminated. Questions about whose ownership they will pass are not finally resolved.

The photo shows the signature of the first cosmonaut who landed on the moon Neil Armstrong, pilot cosmonaut Georgy Timofeevich Beregovoy and all the dead crew members. Supersonic aircraft No. 77102 crashed during a demonstration flight at the Le Bourget air show. All 6 crew members (Honored Test Pilot Hero of the Soviet Union M.V. Kozlov, Test Pilot V.M. Molchanov, Navigator G.N. Bazhenov, Deputy Chief Designer, Engineer Major General V.N. Benderov, Leading Engineer B.A. Pervukhin and flight engineer A.I. Dralin) died.

From left to right. Six crew members onboard supersonic aircraft No. 77102: Honored Test Pilot Hero of the Soviet Union M.V. Kozlov, Test Pilot V.M. Molchanov, Navigator G.N. Bazhenov, Deputy Chief Designer, Engineer Major General V.N. Benderov, lead engineer B.A. Pervukhin and flight engineer A.I. Next, the pilot-cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General Georgy Timofeevich Beregovoy, behind him on the left Lavrov Vladimir Alexandrovich, then the first American cosmonaut to land on the moon Neil Armstrong, then (standing behind the Nile) - Stepan Gavrilovich Korneev (head of the UVS from the department of external relations Presidium of the Academy of Sciences), in the center Tupolev Andrei Nikolaevich - Soviet aircraft designer, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Colonel General, three times Hero of Socialist Labor, Hero of Labor of the RSFSR, then Alexander Alexandrovich Arkhangelsky, chief designer of the plant, Soviet aircraft designer, doctor of technical sciences, honored worker of science and technicians of the RSFSR, Hero of Socialist Labor. Tupolev Aleksey Andreyevich (son of A.N. Tupolev) on the far right is a Russian aircraft designer, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1984, Hero of Socialist Labor. The picture was taken in 1970. Signatures on the photo of G.T. Beregovoy and Neil Armstrong.

Concord

Concord accident.

Currently, the liner is not in operation due to the disaster on July 25, 2000. On April 10, 2003, British Airways and Air France announced their decision to cease commercial operation of their fleet of Conchords. The last flights took place on 24 October. The last flight of the Concorde took place on November 26, 2003, the G-BOAF (the last aircraft built) took off from Heathrow, flew over the Bay of Biscay, made a pass over Bristol, and landed at Filton Airport.

Why supersonic aircraft are no longer operated

Tupolev's supersonic aircraft is often referred to as the "lost generation". Intercontinental flights are recognized as uneconomical: in an hour of flight, a supersonic aircraft burned eight times more fuel than a conventional passenger one. For the same reason, long-distance flights to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok did not justify themselves. It is impractical to use the supersonic "Tu" as a transport liner due to its small carrying capacity. True, passenger transportation on it nevertheless became a prestigious and profitable business for Aeroflot, although tickets were considered very expensive at that time. Even after the official closure of the project, in August 1984, the head of the Zhukovsky flight test base, Klimov, the head of the design department, Pukhov, and the deputy chief designer, Popov, with the support of supersonic flight enthusiasts, restored and commissioned two airliners, and in 1985 obtained permission to fly for setting world records. The crews of Aganov and Veremey set more than 18 world records in the class of supersonic aircraft - in speed, rate of climb and range with a load.

On March 16, 1996, a series of Tu-144LL research flights began in Zhukovsky, which marked the beginning of the development of the second generation of supersonic passenger liners.

95-99 years. The supersonic aircraft with tail number 77114 was used by the American NASA as a flying laboratory. Received the name Tu-144LL. The main purpose is research and testing of American developments to create our own modern supersonic aircraft for passenger transportation.

In the early 60s, it became clear that the USSR needed a supersonic passenger aircraft, because. the main jet liner of that time - Tu-104 from Moscow to Khabarovsk flew with two intermediate landings for refueling. The turboprop Tu-114 performed non-stop flights on this route, but it was in flight for as long as 14 hours. And the supersonic Tu-144 would cover a distance of 8500 kilometers in 3.5 hours! The Soviet Union needed a new modern supersonic passenger aircraft (SPS) to ensure the growing passenger traffic in the conditions of long transcontinental routes.

However, a detailed analysis and study of the proposed SPS projects based on the first supersonic bombers showed that the creation of an effective competitive SPS by modifying a military prototype is an extremely difficult task. The first supersonic heavy combat aircraft, in terms of their design solutions, basically met the requirements of a relatively short-term supersonic flight. For the ATP, it was required to ensure a long cruising flight at speeds of at least two speeds of sound - a Mach number equal to 2 (M = 2). The specifics of the task of transporting passengers additionally required a significant increase in the reliability of all elements of the aircraft structure, subject to more intensive operation, taking into account the increase in the duration of flights in supersonic modes. Analyzing all possible options for technical solutions, aviation specialists both in the USSR and in the West came to the firm opinion that an economically efficient SPS should be designed as a fundamentally new type of aircraft.

During the creation of the Soviet SPS, the domestic aviation science and industry were faced with a number of scientific and technical problems that our neither subsonic passenger nor military supersonic aviation faced. First of all, to ensure the required performance characteristics of the ATP, this is a flight at a speed of M = 2 for a distance of up to 6500 km with 100-120 passengers, in combination with acceptable takeoff and landing data, it was necessary to significantly improve the aerodynamic quality of the aircraft at cruising flight speeds. It was necessary to solve the issues of stability and controllability of a heavy aircraft during flights in the subsonic, transonic and supersonic regions, to develop practical methods for balancing the aircraft in all these modes, taking into account the minimization of aerodynamic losses. A long flight at a speed of M = 2 was associated with research and ensuring the strength of the structure and airframe units at elevated temperatures close to 100-120 degrees C, it was necessary to create heat-resistant structural materials, lubricants, sealants, and also to develop types of structures that could work for a long time under conditions of cyclic aerodynamic heating.

The aerodynamic appearance of the Tu-144 was determined mainly by obtaining a long range of flight in supersonic cruising mode, provided that the required stability and controllability characteristics were obtained, as well as the specified take-off and landing characteristics. The aerodynamic quality of the Tu-144 at double the speed of sound was 8.1, on the Concorde - 7.7, and for most supersonic MiGs of the mid-60s of the last century, the AK did not exceed a coefficient equal to 3.4. The design of the airframe of the first ATP mainly used traditional aluminum alloys, 20% of it was made of titanium, which tolerates heat well up to 200 degrees C. The only aircraft in the world that also used titanium was the SR-71, the famous Blackbird ”, American supersonic reconnaissance.

TU-144D No. 77115 at the MAKS 2015 air show / Photo (c) Andrey Velichko

Based on the conditions for obtaining the required aerodynamic quality and the optimal operating modes of the airframe, aircraft systems and assemblies at subsonic and supersonic speeds, we settled on a low-wing "tailless" scheme with a compound delta wing of an ogive shape. The wing was formed by two triangular surfaces with a sweep angle along the leading edge of 78 ° and 55 ° - for the rear base. Four turbofan engines were placed under the wing. The vertical tail was located along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. The design of the airframe mainly used traditional aluminum alloys. The wing was formed from symmetrical profiles and had a complex twist in two directions: in the longitudinal and transverse. This achieved the best flow around the wing surface in supersonic mode, in addition, such a twist contributed to the improvement of longitudinal balancing in this mode.

The construction of the first prototype Tu-144 ("044") began in 1965, while the second copy was being built for static testing. Experienced "044" was originally designed for 98 passengers, later this figure was increased to 120. Accordingly, the estimated take-off weight increased from 130 to 150 tons. An experimental machine was built in Moscow in the workshops of the MMZ "Experience", some of the units were manufactured at its branches. In 1967, the assembly of the main elements of the aircraft was completed. At the end of 1967, the experimental "044" was transported to the Zhukovsky flight test and development base, where, throughout 1968, development work was carried out and the machine was completed with the missing systems and assemblies.

At the same time, flights of the MiG-21I analogue aircraft (A-144, "21-11"), created on the basis of the MiG-21S fighter, began at the LII airfield. The analogue was created in the Design Bureau of A. I. Mikoyan and had a wing geometrically and aerodynamically similar to the wing of the experimental "044". In total, two "21-11" machines were built, many test pilots flew them, including those who were to test the Tu-144. An analogue aircraft successfully reached a speed of 2500 km/h, the materials of these flights served as the basis for the final fine-tuning of the Tu-144 wing, and also allowed test pilots to prepare for the behavior of an aircraft with such a wing.

At the end of 1968, the experimental "044" (tail number 68001) was ready for the first flight. A crew was appointed to the car, consisting of: the commander of the ship, Honored Test Pilot E. V. Elyan (who later received the Hero of the Soviet Union for the Tu-144); co-pilot - Honored Test Pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union M.V. Kozlov; lead test engineer V. N. Benderov and flight engineer Yu. T. Seliverstov. Given the novelty of the aircraft, the Design Bureau made an extraordinary decision: for the first time, it was decided to install ejection seats for the crew on an experimental passenger car.

During the month, engine races, runs, ground checks of systems were held. From the beginning of the third decade of December 1968, "044" was in pre-launch readiness, the car and crew were completely ready for the first flight, during all these ten days there was no weather over the LII airfield, and the experimental Tu-144 remained on the ground. Finally, on the last day of the outgoing 1968, 25 seconds after the moment of launch, "044" for the first time broke away from the runway of the LII airfield and quickly gained altitude. The first flight lasted 37 minutes, in flight the car was accompanied by an analogue aircraft "21-11". The Tu-144 managed to take off two months earlier than its Anglo-French "colleague" - the Concord liner, which made its first flight on March 2, 1969.

According to the crew, the car proved to be obedient and "flying". A. N. Tupolev, A. A. Tupolev, and many heads of OKB departments were present at the first flight. The first flight of the Tu-144 was an event of world significance and an important moment in the history of domestic and world aviation. For the first time, a supersonic passenger aircraft took to the air.

On June 3, 1973, the first production car crashed during a demonstration flight at Le Bourget. The commander test pilot M. V. Kozlov, co-pilot V. M. Molchanov, deputy chief designer V. N. Benderov, flight engineer A. I. Dralin, navigator G. N. Bazhenov, engineer B. A. Pervukhin died. To investigate the disaster, a commission was created, in which specialists from the USSR and France took part. According to the results of the investigation, the French noted that there was no failure in the technical part of the aircraft, the cause of the disaster was the presence of unfastened crew members in the cockpit, the sudden appearance of the Mirage aircraft in the field of view of the Tu-144 crew, the presence of a movie camera in the hands of one of the crew members, which when falling, it could jam the steering wheel. E. V. Elyan spoke most succinctly and accurately about the Tu-144 crash in Le Bourget in the 90s: flight control services, led to tragic consequences."

Nevertheless, the Tu-144 began to make regular flights. The first working flight was performed on December 26, 1975 on the Moscow-Alma-Ata route, where the aircraft carried mail and parcels, and from November 1977 passenger traffic began on the same direction.

The flights were carried out by only two aircraft - No. 77108 and No. 77109. Aeroflot pilots flew only as co-pilots, while the crew commanders were always test pilots from the Tupolev Design Bureau. A ticket cost a lot of money at that time - 82 rubles, and for a regular Il-18 or Tu-114 flight on the same route - 48 rubles.

From an economic point of view, after some time it became clear that the operation of the Tu-144 was unprofitable - supersonic aircraft flew half empty, and after 7 months the Tu-144 was removed from regular flights. Concord experienced similar problems: only 14 planes flew from Europe to America, and even expensive tickets could not compensate airlines for huge fuel costs. Unlike the Tu-144, Concorde flights were subsidized by the governments of France and Great Britain until almost the beginning of the 90s. The cost of a ticket on the London-New York route in 1986 was 2,745 USD. Only very wealthy people could afford such expensive flights, for whom the formula "time is money" is the main creed of existence. In the West, there were such people, and for them flying Concordes was a natural saving of time and money, which is confirmed by their total flight time on intercontinental routes in 1989 of 325,000 flight hours. Therefore, we can assume that the Concorde program for the British and French was sufficiently commercial, and subsidies were allocated to maintain prestige in relation to the Americans.

May 23, 1978 there was a second crash of the Tu-144. An improved experimental version of the Tu-144D aircraft (No. 77111) after a fuel fire in the area of ​​​​the engine nacelle of the 3rd power plant due to the destruction of the fuel line, smoke in the cockpit and the shutdown of two engines by the crew, made an emergency landing on a field near the village of Ilyinsky Pogost, not far from the city Yegoryevsk. Crew commander V.D. Popov, co-pilot E.V. Elyan and navigator V.V. Vyazigin were able to leave the aircraft through the cockpit window. Engineers V. M. Kulesh, V. A. Isaev, V. N. Stolpovsky, who were in the cabin, left the plane through the front entrance door. Flight engineers O. A. Nikolaev and V. L. Venediktov were caught in the workplace by structures deformed during landing and died. The deflected nose fairing touched the ground first, it worked like a bulldozer knife, entering the ground, turned under the bottom and entered the fuselage. On June 1, 1978, Aeroflot permanently stopped supersonic passenger flights.

Subsequently, the Tu-144D was used only for cargo transportation between Moscow and Khabarovsk. In total, the Tu-144 made 102 flights under the Aeroflot flag, 55 of them were passenger flights, in which 3,194 passengers were transported.

Later, the Tu-144 made only test flights and a few flights in order to set world records. From 1995 to 1999, one heavily modified Tu-144D (No. 77114) called Tu-144LL was used by the US space agency NASA for research into high-speed commercial flights in order to develop a plan for creating a new, modern supersonic passenger aircraft. Due to the lack of serviceable NK-144 or RD-36-51 engines, NK-32 similar to those used on the Tu-160, various sensors and control and recording equipment were installed on the Tu-144LL.

In total, 16 Tu-144 aircraft were built, which made a total of 2,556 sorties and flew 4,110 hours (among them, 432 hours, 77144 flew the most). The construction of four more aircraft was never completed.

There are currently no aircraft remaining in flight condition. Almost completely completed with parts and can be restored to flight condition only Tu-144LL No. 77114 and TU-144D No. 77115. Board No. 77114, which was used for NASA tests, is stored at the airfield in Zhukovsky. TU-144D No. 77115 is also stored at the airfield in Zhukovsky. Once every two years, these machines are demonstrated in a static parking lot during the international aerospace show MAKS.

It is interesting to compare the fate of the Tu-144 and the Anglo-French "Concorde" - machines close in purpose, design and time of creation. First of all, it should be noted that the Concorde was designed mainly for supersonic flights over the deserted expanses of the Atlantic Ocean. According to the terms of the sonic boom, this is the choice of lower altitudes of supersonic cruising flight and, as a result, a smaller wing area, lower takeoff weight, lower required cruising thrust of the power plant and specific fuel consumption.

The Tu-144 had to fly mainly over land, so high flight altitudes and the corresponding parameters of the aircraft, the required thrust of the power plant were required. Less advanced engines should be added to this. In terms of their specific parameters, the Tu-144 engines approached the Olympus only in the latest versions, plus the worse specific parameters of domestic equipment and aircraft units compared to Western ones. All these negative starting points were largely compensated for by the high perfection of the aerodynamics of the Tu-144 - in terms of the obtained aerodynamic quality when flying in supersonic cruising mode, the Tu-144 surpassed the Concorde. This was given by the complexity of the aircraft design and the decrease in the level of manufacturability in production.

There were no rich business people in the USSR, so there was no natural market for services that the Tu-144 was supposed to satisfy. The aircraft obviously had to become largely subsidized and unprofitable in operation, which is why the program for the creation of the Tu-144 should be attributed to the concept of the prestige of the country. There were no real economic prerequisites for the use of ATP in the aviation services market of the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, on the one hand, the heroic efforts of the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev and other enterprises and organizations of the MAP to develop the Tu-144, and on the other hand, the initial emotional upsurge and support from the country's leadership, which gradually turned into indifference and, to a large extent, inhibition on the part of the management of Aeroflot, which, by and large, simply did not need a low-income headache with the development of the most complex Tu-144 complex. Therefore, in the early 80s, when the features of the coming economic and political crisis began to clearly appear in the USSR, the Tu-144 program was one of the first to suffer.