More unknown origin design and fantastic stories here.
When the agreement was made in the Soviet rival foreign species into its first Paris Air Show in 1971, everyone was impressed. The supersonic jet heated race to develop, in insects, which had got off to a head start.
French President George Pompidou, the arguments nationalism, which is called "fair level". The makers conceded that the agreement was "quieter and cleaner".
The Tupolev Tu-144 looked very similar to the Anglo-French competitor - can only earned it the nickname "Concordski" - was somewhat more exotic, but also mysterious. The Soviets' track record in aerospace amount requested, the same year that the first effect, abandoning a probe, the Mars landing and launched the first space station. They seemed to be perfectly positioned to beat the West at supersonic passenger travel.
But in a short time be turned Concordski civil aviation with the mixture to the fortune of the greatest of the errors due to a defect.
Race supersonic flight,
Although I have not earned, as the agreement is in history, and a lesser known art 144-bit beat up to heaven, the flight virgin May 31, 1968 - agreement to two months - and the effect that escaped the first supersonic June 1969 beating the airs with at the competition, by the space of four months.
These men were the small, very pleased. The Americans were out of the race supersonic (Congress similar to the Boeing project funding was canceled in 1971), but the program still was a badge of honor of the Soviet Union.
Every effort was made to outshine the agreement: "Development is started from the middle of the fray, two political systems," Ilya Grinberg in a very Soviet aviation experts and the State University at Buffalo professor, said in an email. "Expectations are high. Of all the pride and the USSR was the most 144-You, the Soviet people, and that the agreement had no doubt that it was good. And it was so pretty? "
And each time, that is ahead of them, so it was just barely civil aviation transitioned from Spectavere forks jets. But in so great resemblance to those which a long fueled the men to examine the stories: "The council of Tupolev, not because of the fall. Since they were the faces the same thing, there are more diverse ones of the planes, even though many of his various aspects. Of the external what are they like, according to the functional criteria and the required parameters. But, really, it is possible that he might himself is a kind of conceptual agreement fruitless decisions could shake "Grinberg.
And the slightly larger, than more quickly and more the concord of Tupolev, but the Father's most distinctive feature, which we should have 'canards' upright' or winglets behind the cockpit, and the things which are out of life, it has been provided an improved handling at low speeds.
Paris crash
After the theft of the show is the biggest in the industry in 1971 and 1973 at the Tu-144, but a tragedy than triumph.
And once again, they were rivals istarumque diagonal. Agreement completed without a hitch, but the demonstration dressed Tupolev most audacious and is turned on and the show proved to be fatal, and rushes into the street Goussainville developer randomly charging in midair, killing six on board, eight of the earth.
In both cases a single common effort the doctrine of the affirms a thing to Tupolev crashed down upon them to avoid the collision with the French Mirage fighter, which is trying to photograph it, and the Grinberg not be quick to let him go: "That a Mirage I had no more to do with a great crash. That was the speculation of those who hear to divert attention from in this cause, of which the rough maneuvering, Art 144 -accentus allowable limits is exceeded. "
Tupolev crash shows footage going into a nosedive after the torture to reignite the flame. Under too much pressure on the wings broke out.
"The pilots tried to write the world's press and the public to show that they were in Soviet plane, sexier 'display of harmony rather than more conservative. That is quite clear from the footage."
55 flights
Hence the beginning of the downward spiral 144: You can not. Paris collapse of the Soviet Union and also delayed the program for four years, allowing the agreement to enter the ministry. But this is not entirely clear need for further action to convince the Soviets.
"Political order to win the West, no matter how denying that obviously played a role, as they are in a highly challenging and scheduling of full charging in their respective fields complicated," said Grinberg.
When he finally began to passengers flying in 1977 and put you 144 in a tight breaking prone of it, we dislike - unlike agreement - supersonic speeds that can only withstand the afterburners, and military aircraft: "A flight 144-You, when there was no hearing sensitive "Jonathan Glancey wrote in the book" harmony ".
Are there too dark for two hours using 144 Aeroflot trip service between Moscow and Alma Ata (now Almaty), then the head of the bed kazahstan pass through sparsely populated areas. However, nearly half of the week the flight rather empty and flat mail bearing the fine men. After six months of service ended.
In its short life as a passenger plane - only 55 return flight - a hundred paces failures Tu-144, many of them no one had survived, ranging from depressurization to engine failure, the alarms will not be switched off. For some years, there is not another rose out of a writer of histories, the plane includes almost all the sons of Aeneas, hands down, who is it who will be pilgrims communicate with each other, by means of wrote it in cipher, that which is in a great noise. Perhaps tellingly his way back from Moscow to locate the plane flies developer to developer, Michael Tupolev itself.
"The region is flat as a whole was ready to deploy. It was teething problems, it would not be economic, in brief, the translation of the work by the way, there was not a true high-speed, "said Grinberg.
The end of an era
Only do thou, also, that in us now start 144 so deadly, and to ruin them. 23 of the month of May, 1978, one of the approaches by which I come, for emergencies in flight, he was furious with his two near Moscow, and were destroyed. However, the real cause of the accident is full readiness to maintain a ban passenger flights the plane going elsewhere.
"This is the loss of interest in the development of general and Soviet Aeroflot high bronze. There are enough of pain associated with this program all wise. The Soviet economic incentives to virtue, to the truth does nothing for the domestic markets, "said Grinberg.
Over the next few years without much fanfare, the plane is quietly retired from the new production was stopped developer. The total length of the program in 1984. As there are 17 Tu-144s produced, including prototypes. Russia and Germany are scrapped off many, but a few of aviation on display in the museum.
What happened in the last flight of 1999 144-You, thanks to NASA, which sponsored by the US-Russian joint research program into three years of supersonic flight. You are the last in the 144-aircraft ever built, and the uses thereof, he set me, the beginning of their flight for more than 82 hours. 27, near Moscow, when the program is before the times of the canned flown out of lack of funds.
A more reasonable successor Tupolev briefly tinkered said: You never really 244 one. At length to be a verse made in 2003 is a harmony; But this is only the doomed in a 2000 accident that killed 113 in Paris is - not far from where the Tu-144 crashed in 1973.
Many other supersonic plane that was proposed, but the production did not. "Who had time to foresee. In the Internet age, and real-time video conferences do not need high-speed transfer to business goals," said Grinberg.
"It is a pity because Thou, O 144, and concord, had been left of the skies. Even though the economic constraints, and although its substance, as we have seen a dream, and told it to the people of the need to ask a thing of the advantages of life as a journey to the supersonic speed. It is not the worst to have a dream, do not think so."
