WHY Did The Tupolev Tu-144 Fail?!
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- Опубликовано: 13 май 2024
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Was it a technological marvel that nearly succeeded, or the product of espionage, as some claim? Was it a great research project, or a waste of resources? There are a lot of questions and perhaps some misunderstandings about the Tupolev 144, or “Concordski” to its critics.
But perhaps the thing that most people remember it for, was a tragic, fatal crash that happened at the 1973 Paris Air Show, almost exactly fifty years ago today.
Stay tuned.
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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.
• Almanac: Nikita Khrush...
• Why the Concorde Faile...
• The Russian Concorde, ...
• first flight with a pa...
• The 50th anniversary o...
• Video
• REWIND: Revisiting the...
• Britain's most famous ...
• SYND 25/05/71 THE ARRI...
• Tupolev Tu-144 and Con...
• Tupolev Tu-144 - "Futu... 
Развлечения
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Skydiving parachutes have to be carefully folded. Do braking chutes or can they just be winched back into their housing for next time. How does this affect turnaround at airports?
@@BiggaNigga69 Who cares mate?
00E3J5
5BÄRBARA
@@BiggaNigga69❤❤❤1
Brilliant is great it certainly is a Brilliant website (🥁🥁)
I saw the TU-144 on the ground at the Paris Air Show a few days before the crash. The company I worked for at the time had the display next to it. One of our team told me that the Russians kept moving the metal barrier between the two displays to give them more walking space; our team kept moving it back. I remember walking past and looking up at it on the day I was there.
what an amazing coincidence
It was a piece of shit then, and it remains a piece of shit now. Nothing good about the copy, just like the Buran. Partial spy photos and the rest, Soviet "engineering". Literally a steaming pile of gowno.
@@andreypetrov4868 It doesn't really matter what the blueprints said; the Russians kept moving them one way, his team kept moving them the other. The blueprints could have been checked and the barriers put where they were supposed to be, but neither team seemed to do that.
A tradition they continue with the country of Georgia.
@@thirdwheel1985auRussia has no issue with Georgia ever since Georgia attacked UN-approved Russian peacekeepers in another nearby country in 08.08.08 war but that matter was solved in days. Today Georgia celebrates direct flights to Russia that were just restarted.
I never forget the first time I saw Concorde taking off at Dallas/Fort Worth airport in 1979 when I was 12 years old. At that time, the surrounding area within ten miles radius was mostly prairie with few office buildings here and there. This allowed Concorde to take off at full power and all the way to the cruising altitude before cutting off the afterburners. I had never seen any plane other than military ones taking off so fast. Being profound deaf, Concorde was only plane that I could hear clearly even though I was standing behind the thick glass windows at 2W terminal. Watching Concorde landing was awestruck, too, like watching an eagle scooping in to grab the fish from the water.
Was it painted in Braniff's livery or did they keep the British Airways and Air France paint jobs? I think they used afterburners only during the takeoff run to help accelerate to the 200 knots takeoff speed but then cut them out for noise abatement. They had to fly subsonic over land between DFW and Dulles and if they kept the A/B going after takeoff they would have gone supersonic before reaching cruise. They were really careful to avoid attracting attention with their noise footprint, there were people just itching to raise a ruckus and shut the supersonic flight down. In the summer of 1977 I used to hear the sonic boom as she left Bahrain every Thursday about 10:00 AM and went supersonic over the Persian Gulf, headed for Singapore. I was about 10 miles from the airport and never saw her while I was there but the boom was unmistakable-like nearby thunder-and always got everyone's attention. When we heard the booms at noon we knew she was running a couple of hours late.
Cool experience. I do not have an equal but I did see a Lancaster fly at that same age.
I was an RAF Cadet in the late 70s and they used to do Concorde testing and training at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at the time.
One year we had a two week camp there and we had to sleep in big old tents near the airfield.
We got to see (and HEAR!) them taking off at a fuel power too!
And VC10s……they were unbelievably loud!!!
Had a similar experience in 1979. I had ridden with my Dad from Alabama to Dulles International to deliver a car. Happened to be the same time one of the Concordes was taking off. You're always going to hear certain jet noises around an airport. This was a whole different animal. We could only hear it. Incredibly loud. Never forget it,
It was a beautiful plane. I hope they will come back into service.
Thank you MentourPilot for covering the TU-144!
My father was a passenger on one of those few passenger flights. It was the flights to Kazakhstan, indeed mostly over not that populated terrain. What was very soviet is the ticket price, it was affordable for the student to fly home for the summer recess, slightly pricer than the regular flight.
of course he was
Want to hear something really freaky? Both Concorde and the Tu-144 suffered one crash each (as far as I know). Both crashes happened, while 30 years apart, just north of Le Bourget Airport in Paris, Concorde in the village of Gonesse, and the Tu-144 crashed in the village of Gousainville. The two crash locations are only about 2 miles apart (I can't find the exact location of the Tu-144 crash, but the exact distance could be as close as 1 mile away). That's one hell of a coincidence.
@@acfiv1421wow I live there , in a little town between those 2... Therefore I live in danger zone 😆
@@acfiv1421 Tu144 crashed at least twice, which also is mentioned in this clip. The second crash was in Russia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Yegoryevsk_Tu-144_crash
The ticket price had nothing to do with what it should have cost; Concorde tickets were $6,000 one way by the end of its service...
I have just visited the TU-144 and Concorde in a museum in Germany. It's really surprising how much more space is available in the TU-144. Walking through the Concorde with all seats in place is actually pretty hard in comparison to a standard single aisle passanger airplane. The TU-144 on the other hand offers enough space to walk comfortably through its aisle.
Another surprise were the tires for the TU-144. They're incredibly small!
I've been to Sinsheim too, a long time ago (almost 20 years since I visited). They didn't have the Concorde yet, as it was still flying. The thing that I vividly remember is that the Tu-144 was at a very high angle, which made it kinda hard to walk up towards the cockpit.
I want to go back and visit the museum again someday.
Sinsheim is a wonderful museum full of curiosities, like one of Hitler's limos. As far as I know, it is the only place on earth where you can see Concorde and the Tu-144 together. You can get there on the S-5 line from Heidelberg. I particularly remembet the dummy passengers in the seats of the Tu-144 who looked suitably terrified. The two planes are mounted at take-off angles up on the roof and sadly are not wheelchair accessible.
I was extremely outraged when I saw they were plane-sickles with the forward passenger doors open to let in moisture. Those museums have no business being in possession of such aircraft if they aren’t going to properly store, maintain, preserve.
The Convair B-58 Husler has really small tires and wheels. If you're not careful, you can easily trip over them. Find a museum where that have one on display. Very impressive aircraft indeed like the Concorde and the TU-144. 👍
I've also heard that the 144 also was super noisy. Couldn't hear the guy next to you.
I saw a British Concorde land and take off from San Antonio on a chilly day in November 1978. It was a promotional flight, largely sponsored by Braniff Airlines, who were eager to enter the SST market. That was the only time Concorde ever visited the Alamo City. I was 16 then. I took a series of pictures of it on its takeoff run and departure climbout. The only time I ever saw Concorde fly. Everyone said it was going to be deafening, but, as I recall, it did not seem to be much louder than the 737-200s that Southwest Airlines were flying in and out of there like bees around a hive. A month later, I was in Dallas, visiting my aunt and uncle, and saw saw two Concordes parked side-by-side at DFW, but I did not see them fly. That was another promotional endeavor.
Really enjoyed this one. As a big fan of Concorde who used to live under the flightpath for it's approach to Heathrow, I never failed to awe at Concorde's grace in the sky. When I was working at BA, I used to watch Concorde come in on 27R from the car park at the top of Technical Block C (TBC) in BA's maintenance base or I'd sometimes sneak airside to get a better look.
Yes , watching her light off at night was one of the added bonus of working at Heathrow.
I love in dedworth right under the takeoff route. I can still hear the mad sound it made flying overhead. So loud you couldn't hear the person next to you talk.
"8 wheel main gear boogie set up" is definitely the coolest thing i've heard anyone say in a while.
Great video, always good to see someone telling about soviet aviation.
Speaking about Tu-144's "Flight control augmentation system" called ABSU -- automatic onboard conrtol system, it acted pretty like an FBW in fact, just not like an airbus one. More like a boeing one, you still need to trim the aircraft when flying manually but there's no any physical connection between controls in the cockpit and control surfaces, and all feedback forces are synthetically generated. In the Soviet union it was called a "booster control system" and was also used on Tu-154 for example. ABSU cross-controlled elerons, elevator (which were the same in the case of Tu-144, obviously) and rudder, applying all the dampings if needed. So yes, pretty much boeing-like fbw i think.
And speaking about other avoinics it was far more advanced than on the Concorde. Somewhere over there was the comment stating that Tu-144's cockpit looks more modern that Concorde's one (Schiphol museum) and that's right. Engeneers panel on Tupolev has from 1,5 to 2 times less gauges and switches, in fact the automation was so high that flight engeneer just had to monitor the panel and toggle one single switch 2 times during the whole flight (yes, a bit oversiplified, but still), even fuel balancing (known as the main headache of those supersonics) was fully automated. And the navigation system was just a marvel for mid 1970s. 30 waypoints in memory (10 in Concorde afaik), 100-meters-precision INS over 5600 km leg using automatic beacon correction, several alternates which can be flown to by autopilot by one click, automatic holding patterns, 15-inch moving map, etc. You can even pick any point on that map, push 2 buttons and autopilot will fly you to that point. Maybe only L-1011 Tristar was more advanced at the time.
To conclude, it's such a shame that this airplane just hasn't shown its full potential. It was innovative in every acpect, sometimes not fully successful, engines part for example (though they were lately developed into NK-32 -- the best high-thrust supersonic turbofans in the world, installed onto Tu-160), and sometimes marvelously good. But nevertheless, every engineer working on this project put a part of his soul into it back than. And now... Well, now no one wants to be "faster, higher and stronger". Everyone wants to be more profitable.
And that is big problem with soviet programs. Just like the soviet union birth they were revolutionary, rather then evolutionary.
That's right what You said. At first papa A.N. Tupolev wanted to build this plane on the new levels and they did! Simply this baby bird was unlucky and there wasn't given to it a chance to grow to perfection. It was a marwell- no question about that.
A lot of my avionics instructors in the early 70's were ex Concorde as that project wound down. A couple of were up front in saying that misinformation was deliberatly allowed to be found by the known spies to frustrate their efforts.
I am sure the Chinese are doing the same and that karma makes a visit when they start their aggression. 🇨🇳
Seems the wing data was held somewhere secure, i wonder where?
Bogus , the Concorde came into service in the mid 70s , there was no talk of winding down in the first years
@@cnfuzz I can assure you some of my avionic Instructor Officers in the Royal Navy in '74 were ex Concorde. I should know - I was there - you were not.
@@almac2598 Think poster getting mixed up. It is obvious by 70's the electrics design was settled like most projects. The aircraft were pretty much built. Think it was said the analogue computers were removed on retirement save them getting into the wrong hands.
I had always thought that the Soviets had stolen the design of Concorde to make the Tu144, but your video makes clear that the designs were different in many areas. The push for a faster cruising speed meant a change of materials in the design, for example. Thank you for enlightening me! I always learn something from you.
Comparing Tu144 and the Concord is like comparing a shark to a dolphin. They are completely different animals, they only look very similar because they live in the same environment.
Great to see an excellent factual analysis on the Tu 144 rather than the usual propaganda / mass media nonsense. Needing afterburner at cruise would have likely been a business case killer if it had proceeded to volume production for commercial use. Really enjoyed the video, thanks for it. Cheers!
It was planned from the beginning that first engine choice was temporary
@@player1GRthe question is could it really do better with another choice. Remember, Concorde's ability to supercruise is exceptional to this day - no plane coud do it before, and even though few like F22 can today, they don't come anyway near to supercruise at mach 2 which Concorde was able to do for hours. Tupolev's own supersonic strategic bomber, the Tu-160 can't, supercruise at all, and the Kolesov RD-36 would not provide enough thrust increase for it either.
@@mancubwwaI agree how incredible Concorde’s supercruise was. To supercruise now you have to be a fighter pilot in a g-suit. In Concorde they were supercruising wearing business suits, sipping champagne and eating smoked salmon.
@@sparky4878 No G-suit required for super cruise. No G forces to deal with in cruise.
It wasn’t just an air show, Bourget is one of the most important exibitions for airplane manufacturers in the world.. it’s where they present and sell their products to airline companies and also armies.
I remember I was a young lad on my way to France with my family on a ship.
We were out on the rear deck watching the sunset behind the ship - beautiful.
This was suddenly interrupted by concord going over head with the 2 distinct sonic booms.
Well I can tell you I thought we were doomed 😂😂
But I'm glad I have that memory of concord , while I never flew on it or saw it flying, at least I have a memory of sorts.
On Exmoor Somerset UK, every night at 21:05, the windows would give a slight shake. Concorde going supersonic over the Bristol Channel. You could litterally set your watch by it.
no date nothing amazing
@@papalaz4444244 WTF is wrong with you with the annoying, rude, stupid responses? Can you find another way to waste your life?
@@papalaz4444244 Hmmm papa... To quote your comment in it's entirety "no date nothing amazing". At least there was an accurate timestamp and stories. Much more meaningful than your comment.
While not made by the concorde, I remember the sound of supersonic aircraft I sometimes heard in my youth in the 90s. In western Germany, you'd hear them every now and then by Royal or US Air Force. And you'd jumpscare because of the loud bang that came out of the blue, or even when you could see them and were sort of prepared (which rarely happened). I think I may have heard the last ones by the early 2000s.
I remember I used to watch Concorde taking off from Heathrow Airport each day around 6pm as I was coming out of work. It was a sigh to behold especially in winter when you could really see the huge flames of its afterburners in action!
Any of us who lived / worked around Heathrow were blessed to see this amazing aircraft for almost 28 years. Obviously you saw far more in daylight, but the sight of those vivid blue afterburner flames at night was indeed amazing.
I saw it about that time from Bethnal Green.
A great coincidence that this video is coming out now! Just last week, I went to the Technical Museum in Sinsheim, Germany, where I got to see the TU-144 and walk through it. A truly amazing feat of technology and I highly recommend everyone who is into this topic and wants to see this marvel along with the concorde to visit Sinsheim.
Marvel, LMFAO. It's a piss poor copy. Anything Soviets do is garbage, to this day. I wouldn't pay to see it.
That museum pisses me off and saddens me at the same time. How they can let all the beautiful aircraft in their possession rot in the elements is beyond me.
I thought the intrepid in new york was similar all the aircraft on it including the AN-12 look in awfuk condition. I asked the guy that was giving the talk about it and he just said " everything has it's day" I thought it was a travesty.@@chrissmith7669
@@chrissmith7669 well, they don't have any hangars that are big enough to accommodate them. Where else are they going to put them?
That picture of the Buran sitting on top of the Antonov-225. What a shame and what a waste what Russia did to that plane.
Still a pain in my heart.
Not to mention the thousands of people they've murdered in Ukraine.
in germany there is a museum where they have both a concorde and a Tu-144, one in front of the other.
21:16 bingo! that's what i'm talking about!
That'll be Sinsheim Technik Museum then. Every now and then I drive past it but never when I have time to visit (so far!)
@@neilbarnes3557
yep, sinsheim. i went there a few years ago.
Petter shows the photos at the end of the video - that's from that museum in Sinsheim, in Southern Germany. Both planes are directly visible from the A6 motorway because the museum is right next to it.
There is the "other half" of the Sinsheim technical museum in the nearby city of Speyer where are also the Russian shuttle Buran and various other spacecraft and aircraft on display. Sinsheim has more military vehicles (tanks, guns, etc.) and a lot of cars, Speyer has more aircraft and spacecraft but each have a bit of both, including some crazy and really obscure things - e.g. a submarine in Speyer (and another one coming next year to Sinsheim) or that Buran.
If you are into this stuff and happen to be in southern Germany, both museums are worth a visit - but budget at least 4-5 hours for each, they are large and jam-packed with exhibits, even if you don't go so see any IMAX films. If you have kids then better a whole day for each of them.
@@JanCiger yep, i've visited both speyer (747-230, antonov 22,...) and sinsheim (tupolev 144, concorde) several years ago.
The dacha were I grew up stood almost right under the glideslope of Domodedovo airport, some 10 km from the edge of the runway. I recall very well the first (and only) summer of regular Tu-144 flights in 1977... and, surprise, the most amazing thing about it was that it was quiet. Very quiet by Soviet standards of the time. Most civilian flights were still turboprops, and even a small turboprop like An-24 (not to mention the Tu-114) was much, much noisier than the Tu-144. The small Tu-134 emitted scary high-pitched whining noise, more appropriate for a dentist's drill, but the Big Boi had none of this nonsense. At least at subsonic speed.
These aircraft can be quiet when the engines aren't in 'loud' i.e. high thrust mode. Concorde used to overfly residential areas around New York, they would turn the engines right down, and then once they were past, full power. They were then quieter than the normal subsonic aircraft! But not when gaining altitude and speed.
I've seen videos of the TU-154, a wonderful scream of the engines. Wonder what they were like to travel on? I suppose quite ordinary.
@@andrewclark8630nside it sounded quite pleasing to the ear but on startup it was juuuust music. You probably heard some botched recording - in reality it sounded nice and a tad high-pitched bit definitely not screaming. Otherwise they felt pretty identical to modern planes. No infotainment though.
@@gustavevilleneuvedehoff-un5459
Many times on Soviet airliners the "infotainment" WAS the screaming...
Of the passengers...
😉
@@charlestaylor253 a human being wouldn’t even think this “joke” let alone write it in public. Bad news for you.
A brilliant documentary on the Tupolev TU-144. As a kid seeing this plane and Concord on television then, it seemed like we were heading supersonic to the stars !
Very interesting. I did saw the Tupolefv144 in flight the day before the crash at the Bourget air show in 1973 as well as the Concord. This was before I moved to the US. My brother did flew one time form Paris to New York on the Concord (with Champagne.)
When it comes to the difference in engines between the two, I believe the expression you're missing over the Olympus engine is the ability of Concorde to 'Supercruise'.
Concorde needed afterburners twice in flight... on take off and going through acceleration over water. Both were reasonably brief.
The intakes allowed for Concorde to fly supersonically without afterburners - hence her ability to supercruise
My Aunt and Uncle flew on the Concorde from Paris to New York about 2 years before the crash that ended it. Said it was cool. Smaller inside than imagined. 3.5 hr flight. $5,000/seat one way. I still have the receipt where he made the booking through his travel agent. They had spent 3 weeks vacationing in Italy.
Sounds like the kind of uncle you would want putting you in their will!
@@rafaelteodoro680 LOL...I was.....
The Paris crash did not kill Concorde completely. Modifications were made & it was on a test flight on a certain 9/11. Many regular customers were killed in that incident & many others were put off from flying so switched to video conferencing. Maintenance costs also continued to rise (which they typically do for older machines) & it became uneconomic to keep Concorde working. Not all Concordes were given the post-2000 modifications. Those which didn't were never re-introduced into service.
Peter, I was working at the United Aircraft Stand at the Paris Air Show in 1973 and saw the TU-104 crash.
Our (P&WA engineers) opinion of the cause of the crash was that the TU-104 was flying at a very low speed - gear and flaps down - and was dragged over the Le Bourget runway at almost stalling speed. As they reached the end of the runway, the pilots pushed the throttles forward for more speed, and pulled the nose up in a low speed steep climb.
The TU-104 stalled and crashed.
I will always remember living on Edwards Air force Base when I was a kid. They use that base for testing, research, development etc etc. You'd hear sonic booms daily, usually many times daily so you'd hear the massive bang then windows started rattling and you'd look up to see jets flying around. It was so so cool as a kid and something I haven't heard since.
It’s ironic that one of the surviving 144s wound up at Edward’s as a test platform for a time in the 90s.
My father was an aeronautical engineer ant NASA's Langley Research Center. I fervently read his subscription to Aviation Week magazine. They had great coverage of progress on the Concord project as well as what they could dig up on the TU-144 from the mid-1960 into the 1970s. I was in my last years of elementary school as these aircraft were nearing their first flights and going through high school as their development continued. I recall an article about a highly unique and innovative engineering solution the Concord wing problem soon before its first flight. Upon the public debut of the TU-144 it was obvious that the Soviets used that exact same innovation in their design. This was held as strong evidence of espionage in stealing engineering details and ideas from the British/French project.
@@andreypetrov4868I know, the idea that a country that completely reversed engineered the B29 would copy the west is ridiculous.
@@andreypetrov4868 Kinda reminds on how US thought that Japanese couldn't produce good planes so they just thought those were copies and crap planes because Japanese could never make something good on their own, but in reality all those planes were indigenous designs.
These two planes were designed concurrently to have same 'mission" profile so of course they are going to look a like and even inspired but saying they used exact same innovation in their design is stupid as those those thought Japanese couldn't develop something as advanced as zero on their own. it is same line of thinking that led world to be shocked that when soviets not only put man in space but made him orbit around.
Main flaw with 144 is that it was already next generation in comparison to concord and when such design gets rushed to this degree problems creep up faster then you can solve them, it was essentially a prototype rushed into service
@@andreypetrov4868 Please note that I used the term "evidence", not proof. As a manned spaceflight buff during that same period I was keenly aware of Soviet superiority very evident in booster payload capacity and other areas as well. The USA did not catch up until the late 1960s with the success of the Saturn V.
I remember a documentary on both of them which indicated that an early design if Concorde also toyed with the canards, so possibly this is one of the things that lead to the more fanciful espionage claims (that is to say, espionage definitely did happen, just possibly some of the more extreme claims of deliberate faulty designs)
@@MarkoLomovicI highly recommend you read books by space and aviation writer James Oberg, who worked in Mission Control and speaks fluent Russian. He covered extensively the history of the 144 and paints a very different picture of the program. Did you know that in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the 144, Soviet engineers approached the British government to help them with engine controls and a laundry list of other things? They declined, of course, in part because of the potential for British/French technology to be transferred to the Soviet military program.
Very good and unbiased video. I would like to see more videos about russian planes on your channel.
I don't know how you maintain such consistently high quality Petter. Don't ever sell out and become a generic 'presenter' - you live your content and it shows. I am considering becoming a Patreon member because I watch all of your output 🙂
Well explained again - I remember an onward flight from Sheremetro to Hamburg performed by a TU 154 - everything was made of cast iron, no plastic at all, and it was extremely loud - the first row shared a bottle of vodka, which was finished over Minsk already :) //
Tu5 wasn’t much louder than it’s direct foreign competitors. And yep, insides as plasticky as 732, though the Soviet lightning was way fancier. Flew both a lot and do miss the startup triple tone of 154 - that was awesome music.
Excellent video, Petter. Now I know more about the TU 144 than I did before.
I'm really impressed with the amount and quality of images and film. Great job, and of course, your detailed research and presentation are second to none.
A brilliant video. Just love the background to the actual topic. First class work by all the team.
Really enjoying this new series on classic aircraft. I know most of these stories already but I like your take on them
Thank you for this! I wondered aloud (if one can say that about a comment) about this during your excellent video where you discussed our beautiful bird (looking forward to your video on her too!). Weirdly, I had forgotten about the crash despite being a kid - okay, about a five-year-old! - when it happened. I had only recently been reminded of it before this video, but not the reasons or any other details. I'm loving this series on the plane types - more please!
Really enjoyed this detailed look at this beauty. Thanks for your research and presentation too!
Excellent summary Petter. As someone who grew up in the USSR at the time, I grew up hearing on the marvels of the Tu-144 all the time. And at the time I never even heard of the Concorde...
Great video. Would love to hear more stories about some Soviet era planes...
Regarding the choice to use titanium: it's also notable that at the time, titanium was far more available in the Soviet bloc than outside of it. When the Americans were desgining the SR-71, for instance (an extremely high speed spy plane, for those who don't know) they needed titanium and their best source was buying it from the Soviets, through a series of shell companies and so on. This kind of effort was viable for a limited run, highly specialized series of spy planes (no more than 50 SR-71s and similar variants were produced). And this is a specialized plane with a limited production run (less than 50 including variants and prototypes) wieghing about 68 tonnes gross weight with a 2-person capacity, compared to the Concorde's 111 tonnes gross weight and room for somewhat more than 100 people.
Just *sourcing* the titanium for the Concorde would have been one heck of a project, let alone figuring out the material differences well enough to make it safe to fly.
I live in Bristol and I’d have been happy to hear the sonic boom of the Concorde over it being taken out of service.
As an American Floridian I can attest to how insane the first time you hear an unexpected sonic boom is! The first time the space shuttle landed when I moved to Florida absolutely terrified me lmao
As always, a very interesting and well documented video. Thanks for this great work.
Thank you, Petter, for covering this topic!
Fascinating! The most hours of any one TU144 is said to be around 400. Fun fact. Another fascinating Soviet airliner, perhaps The most fascinating of all is the TU114, an aircraft impression of a grasshopper! Those contra-rotating props at 15000+shp, I believe. Quite good in service, by all accounts. Just incredible! Be a great topic for Mentour. Final fun fact- Japan Airlines operated one...
As someone who admire the Concorde dearly, it was great to have a better understanding of the TU-144. Along with your video of the super sonic port at the Everglades, this was a great series for super sonic commercial flight. But since you mentioned you will be making another deep dive of the Concorde, I cannot wait to see that when it comes out. On the other hand, I wish Boom will have their engine supplier sort out and which will bring its R&D to my backyard, quite literally at KGSO!
Absolutley brillinat video!
Thanks very much for such a well researched and presented show
Nicely done. This plane has always fascinated me!
20:33 Tu-244 picture from Roblox aeronautica, nice
I have actually visited both Concorde and Tu-144 in Sinsheim two weeks ago. That's where your photos are from.
Concorde is really cramped inside and even though the plane shown in Sinsheim is one of the last that were flying in revenue service, it was rather shocking to see some of the avionics and electronics equipment it was flying with in the late 90s - it looked straight from the 50-60s and very much the same as the flight test prototype Concorde that is exhibited in Le Bourget in Paris (there is another Concorde at Le Gaulle airport and also one down at Orly but only the one at Le Bourget is accessible).
Compared to that the Tu-144 feels much less cramped (it is indeed a bit bigger) even though the cabin is very spartan (no such thing like adjustable seats or even luggage bins!). The cockpit and avionics has decidedly more modern look too (the function is another story, of course).
One thing one doesn't quite realize until actually seeing the interior of these planes is how claustrophobic they both feel - very cramped and those tiny windows! More portholes than windows. Doesn't compare at all with other airliners, even of the same era.
I thoroughly enjoyed my Concorde Flight (Birthday Treat). Didn't notice any cramped conditions neither being claustrophobic - The windows were large enough to look down on the Clouds and Earth itself PLUS a slight 'nudge' in the small of my back when going supersonic.... mmmmm Memories.
That's why they served premium booze on the Concorde, even pre-flight in the lounge. 😂
Yeah I been to sinsheim too
wrong, I've walked through a Concorde and didn't find it cramped
Strange the impression that people get from walking through a retired museum airframe. There was nothing cramped or claustrophobic about the cabin of a British Airways Concorde when you flew in it and sat back in those superb leather seats. 4 hrs in one was so relaxing.The cabin was light and airy - 50% of the seats had a window and unlike a widebody you could easily see across to the other side. The deep blue sky and the curve of the earth seen from 58,000 ft height is an amazing memory that will stay with me forever, as was looking down four miles on a Boeing 777 apparently going backwards at almost 800mph. The only time the cabin width made a difference was in the toilet. Being 6ft I had to stoop a bit.
Great work as always!
One of the best! Thank you for making this video.
I view Concorde and Tu-144 as examples of convergent design: when two groups attempt to solve the same problem under the same constraints, they are likely to come up with similar solutions.
I remember seeing footage of NASA engineers refurbishing a Tu-144 as a testbed for supersonic research. Maybe on Nova?
Except the TU--144 was NOT a convergent design. It ripped a pile of technology and design off from the Concorde. This was SOP for the Soviets in the era.
It's fairly established that significant parts of the concorde project were spied on by the ussr, they still had to come up with original designs some of it similar because of how supersonic flying works but there was definite copying going on.
Espionage was big business during the Cold War. Like, duh! But to characterize Tu-144 as a copy of Concorde does a massive disservice to the very smart people at Tupolev. Other large supersonic planes looked similar (e.g. B1-B, 2707) because that’s how you make a big supersonic plane.
@@marsgal42 Uh no other large super sonic planes do NOT look similar. The only ones that did are the Concorde and the TU -144 due to the shared base engineering. Tupelev has stated on multiple occasions that were provided with drawings, blueprints, and other technical materials from the Concorde and the 223 SST programs. The TU-144 owes much of its base engineering to Concorde and the 223 program.
Great video! I have an interest in Concorde especially since it was partly designed and built here in Bristol where I live. As were the Olympus engines of course.
I even have 1/144 models of both planes just waiting to be built and then displayed beside each other...
Thank you. Happy to find your channel again. Always very interesting material.
Excellent program as always!
I was there & saw it crash back in '73. Yes, a steep climb that lurched into a steep dive, at pretty low altitude. Viewed from behind, it appeared to me to stall (I have no expertise, just what it looked like to me).
The official conclusions mystify me. Perhaps it Was over-stressed - it certainly broke up. But why exactly did it find itself in a steep dive so low?
Its funny how West named the plane "Concordski" as if was from Poland. Something like Concordiev instead.
More like Conkordov
Maybe start with a "K" instead of a "C"? Or is that back to Polish?
O kurwa 😯
@@t.s.1565 Concordov and Concordiev sounds more bulgarian! LOL I suggest - Concordin 🤣
@@mikeromadin8744Sounds more like something you'd play rather than fly.
Thanks Mentour, l always really appreciate your videos, super interesting & well explained !
As an airline employee in the early to mid 80’s, I had an opportunity to travel one way on the Concorde at a big discount. Unfortunately, I was poor at the time and never took it up. It’s a big regret now.
Brilliant video!! thanks!! Lets all give a shout out to the late great Kelly Johnson who was instrumental in the original designs of variable intake geo for supersonic flight (reference the SR-71 project of course)
Jag älskar dina videos! Concorde är mitt favoritflygplan!Jag är sjuksköterska men jag har alltid velat lära mig att flyga. Flyg är en passion och besatthet för mig. Tack så mycket för alla dina videos!
Such a palpable memory, really appreciate you sharing this 👍
Interesting history here - I'd heard of this aircraft, but didn't know much about it. Great video Mentour team.
The plane only ever made 105 flights, and in those 105 flights, there were 80 of them where a major mechanical malfunction occurred, with blind luck and/or the pilots bravery being the only things that stopped the plane from becoming a crater in Kazakhstan.
Glorious Soviet technology, ladies and gentlemen.
Mustard did a video on the Tu-144 where he basically gushed over it and insisted it wasn't that bad. There's a LOT of ignorant Sovaboos on RUclips who will insist it was actually BETTER than the Concorde but just never got a chance thanks to Western perfidy.
@harveywallbanger3123 being on a soviet aircraft (especially a relatively new one) is like being a beta tester for a new kind of Russian roulette where you play with two guns and both are loaded with 5 bullets each. I swear soviet technology was 95% pissing contest to APPEAR superior to the west at the expense of hundreds if not thousands of dead beta tes- I mean, passengers, and 5% actual great innovation that pushed the industry forward.
No problems with the Concorde at the same time?
@@theodorTugendreich Slava Ukraini. 🖕
AERONAUTICA SCREENSHOT AT 20:33 LMAO
Yep
Ikr
Am I the only one who waits staring at my notifications for a mentour video? Like man his videos are soo interesting , keep up the work!
Flew both Concord's Air France to Paris and B-Airways home.
Sat in the Bulkhead Front row. Cockpit door open the entire flight.
You will see the curvature of the Earth. The food service on the
B-Airways was better. A great plane for small people.
Nothing like getting to Heathrow as quick as Palm Beach FL.
Louder landing then taking off. Still have all the giveaways
from both Airlines. True traveling experience.
Awesome!
According to the Russian documentary, they always pushed things too fast, and because the designer was not able to coordinate everything himself, the parts delivered might not have been the ones he required. As it often was, they wanted one thing, but if the designer could not control everything and the deadlines were short, especially if the party wanted to present something at some show, the end result would be tragic or badly completed. Also another thing was, that back in the day the fuel consumption was not much of an issue, only the later years made them feel how valuable it is to have lower fuel consumption, why some planes only flew inland - due to high fuel consumption, it was way too expensive. That being said, they did create some fantastic thing and would have created more if the whole system would have worked differently.
Congratulations on the video, as always very accurate and interesting. I follow several channels related to airplane disasters, but I have never seen a video that goes into detail about the technology of CVR and FDR (the so-called black boxes, which are not black). I have noticed that in almost all airplane incidents, the black boxes are recovered, even in cases of high-impact crashes that often reduce the entire aircraft to pieces. And in the rare cases where they are not recovered, it is often due to issues unrelated to the impact. I have never seen what technology allows them to withstand such violent impacts, which sometimes even crush the engine fragments.
It would be interesting (and new) to delve into this topic.
Great point, that would be very interesting to know 👍🏾
"What I want to know is, if the black box is indestructible, why don't they make the planes out of the same f**king stuff?"
Billy Connolly
Thanks for excellent aviation history. So many details I never heard of before.
Excellent video my friend. I'm waiting with excitement and baited breath about your video about Concorde.
Espionage definitely had taken place. As a college student in USSR I studied dynamics of flight, dynamics of fluid, and other aviation related subjects. During these classes we were presented with lots of Concord testing results. I highly doubt that France would publish such material in open forums.
Actually a lot of this sort of information was available in research journals. Just as there was information on soviet naval reactors.
This is a complex story to tell in such a short video and you covered a lot of it concisely. However the two SSTs were not comparable. Concorde as introduced to service in 1976 was a refined and safe airliner by the standards of the day - it had already flown 100 passengers from the USA to the UK as long ago as Autumn 1974. The technology was cutting-edge. The initial TU-144 registration 68001 in contrast was a rushed and dangerous concept, unfit for civillian use, hence the radical redesign. The later TU-144 airframes with canards and a new wing design that made the 55 flights from Moscow to Almaty were nowhere near ready for service. Many flights were cancelled and there were a lot of inflight systems failures. Aeroflot stopped the service after 7 months in fear of having a fatal crash after experiencing several dangerous inflight incidents. And although there were 150 seats, the aircraft never carried even half that number of passengers - it's real-world range was so marginal (well under 2,000 miles) that it couldn't carry a commercial payload to Almaty. The 3,500 nm range you quoted for a later version with more modern engines was never achieved to my knowledge and may have been pure Soviet propoganda. The designers had asked the French and British for technological assistance to refine the 144, especially with the engine intakes. However the UK refused the request as the technology could have been used on Soviet bombers. One other thing - Concorde could have had 128 economy seats (32 rows), however there wasn't really enough space for the luggage.
@@andreypetrov4868 ?
Everything about Soviet anything is heavier, slower, burns more fuel, and way more inefficient. Garbage.
@@andreypetrov4868 Good, I'm glad you clearly see the way, comrade. Towards progress, and meeting the next 5 year plan!
@@andreypetrov4868 So glad it is obvious what kind of person I am conversing with. I lived through communism, and so we had to leave our country because of it. Flawed system, oppressive and soul-crushing. No wonder everything that came out of it represented that mindset. No surprise also that the smart ones left before the curtain went up and became prosperous elsewhere, instead of serving that bolshevik bullshit. I have seen it, I have lived it, I have worked in it and I have seen it cap the careers of many that did not want to join the Party. You will never convince me that anything good came out of the USSR, except that it was there and it made the US and European economy react to it, mostly positively.
@@andreypetrov4868yeah thats generally what happens when your Tsar abdicates the throne, an election is held, the commies lose fair and square, and they hold a massive revolution to kill the opposition that won and anyone who voted for them while also seizing the means of production from anyone who was a landowner effectively turning everyone into serfs to the state. You're not exactly going to have too many friends when you had your own "mini-holocaust" followed by several other famines that killed tens of millions of people. Trading with them would be like trusting the local methamphetamine addict to babysit your children for a weekend.
Fascinating. Thanks so much for making this video. I’ve always wondered about the differences between the TU-144 and Concorde… now I know 👍
Yay, Another Mentour Now Video😁
Tu-144 was a prime example of both soviet engineering and soviet politics. Not a lot of people in the west appreciate just how strong aerospace engineering was in the soviet union - people that designed the planes did impossible things on minimal budgets all the time. In face we see their solutions re used in modern aviation and space flight over and over again to this day. That was due to soviet education system (the one thing soviets did right) that was pure meritocracy - everything was free, for every last villager, you got a place to live and food to eat... But you had to constantly compete for placement by passing steeper and steeper examinations and producing more and more impressive results. This incredible brain mill was of course than subjected to the party governance... Which was corrupt, uncaring and believed that you just need to press the people more and they will deliver anything you want... As soon as you want it.
Tu-144 could have been an incredible plain if the government just let the engineers do what was needed and gave them reasonable time to accomplish it. Politics is what killed this project and robbed us all of some amazing innovations that could have happened along the way.
Seems like another copied technology.
@@markgarin6355 Without going in to technical details, no it is not. The reason why some of the top tech looks similar is because the optimal technical solutions are well... OPTIMAL. When you solve a math equation there IS a right answer, deviating from it means loosing efficiency so for engineering the "best in class" is always going to look very similar on the outside. The devil is in the details and one really needs an engineering degree in relevant filed to see them.
Just like with tanks: they have tank first, then they think how human will fit in it. Or rather: how human crew will fit there is just not their top priority. Russian tank lifespan is short enough,to not worry neither about the vehicle, neiher crew. Just make sure production costs are as low as possible.
@@Sshodan Yah thats a nice sentiment, but its not a coincidence that this plane looked nearly identical to Concord and debuted at nearly the same time. The Soviets had a well documented history of copying western designs. We love to romanticize soviet technology and their innovations based on "what if" scenarios in an alternate history where the union didn't collapse. The fact is that western technology in nearly all conceivable ways sets the standard that the rest of the world attempts to copy. Which is why the US is going on nearly 2 centuries of dominance and Russia is about to collapse again.
@@markgarin6355 Concorde itself was more or less Nazi technology. Dietrich Küchemann was moved to the UK under Operation Surgeon to avoid him being collected by the Russians and he helped invent it.
I love your video's as soon as you start speaking you have me hooked, your intellect, articulation, presentation, etc is second to none, I can't believe how fascinating I find aircraft now!!
Your video brought back memories. As a kid I lived about 4 miles from Dulles Intl. We always knew when the Concorde was taking off!
It's insane how much effort and resources they put into the development, just for competition and 55 flights in the end.
But then again, they also developed Buran and its carrier plane An 225. Which must have been even more expensive and even less success had come of that in Soviet times. Mriya was at least a unique and valued cargo plane afterwards.
Thing is if you spend money within a country - you don’t lose it. Doesn’t exactly work today for most countries, but did work back then. Interestingly enough now this still works for Russia with all them “sanctions” and all - therefore they got their production booming at +7,5% while the rest of the world is at -2,5 best (except China, they are on slight but positive side).
And the knowledge you learn from these tech experiments is priceless. Russia now has hypersonic tech while the rest, well, you know.
Like most Soviet tragedies, the politburo making the calls rather than the engineers is what led to this disaster.
The whole Supersonic Programs were an expensive disaster, both in East and West.
Yeah...yeah... fine...
If the "politburo" is responsible for the disaster, how is that western program failed?!
Concord crashed in to some hotel... Well, is that also because of Soviet government, uh?..
The airshow Tu-144 crash was almost certainly a matter of simple aerodynamics and pilotage. The fatal climb was extremely steep and turning, very high angle of attack at slow speed , the jet obviously became subject to the predictable effects of aerodynamic stall with nose suddenly dropping and then inverted due to simultaneous spin occurring so quickly that that recovery was not possible. This reflects inadequate carefully planned and structured flight testing to validate a safe operational envelope. Flight testing of new model jets is usually a long drawn out process specifically to avoid nasty lethal surprises such as these.
I remember all the protests over the sonic booms the Concord would produce and thought it was just a lot of fuss about nothing. Until that is during a visit to my in-laws in Brooklyn where I saw and heard a Concord coming in to land at Kennedy airport. It was five miles away, across Rockaway bay and it was loud! I had seen dozens of 747s landing and never heard them. But then almost two hours later I caught sight of the Concord taking off and it was really LOUD! Then I understood why people were protesting and why America never built their own SST nor allowed any SST to fly over our country. The engine noise and sonic boom were just too much, and even today airport noise is still a problem with conventional jet aircraft.
Jets used to really scream. Airport noise is much less these days.
I was born and grew up in Guernsey, Channel Islands. The french Concorde went supersonic over our islands on its way to New York every day. The supersonic boom was really no big deal. A few dogs barked and we wondered if the midday gun had just been fired at Castle Cornet (a tradition) or if it was just the Concorde flying over. This topic with the boom was to my mind instrumentalised by the USA in order to prevent the Concorde (as they were too stupid to get their own supersonic jet off the drawing board). Sorry about that.
Was Concorde allowed to fly supersonic over mainland Europe?
Having heard some footage of Concorde (unfortunately, having been born in 2001, I never got to hear one in reality that I can recall, though my parents tell me stories of it), the question that always springs into my mind if the booms from Concorde would have been even half as annoying as the military fighter tests that seem to be run almost daily in the US.
If the answer is no, bring the plane back. Why should the military be allowed to make so much noise while Concorde was banned for it?
@@Cleptro Your yes/no question makes the assumption that U.S. citizens are subjected to military sonic booms, which is not the case. Military supersonic flights generally occur in specific areas which are either far offshore or in remote areas. Isolated incidents occur mainly due to weather conditions causing the booms to travel farther than usual. But most U.S. citizens will likely never hear a sonic boom. Possibly there are small areas of the country that hear them more often, for example residents in Cape Canaveral, Florida hear the sonic booms from SpaceX booster landings, but that is not daily, or even even monthly, and it is certainly not multiple times per day as would be the case with supersonic airline travel. I heard a few sonic booms when I was growing up in Orange County, California in the 1960's and 70's, probably less than five. In later years I heard none so I assume they moved farther offshore.
@@StevePemberton2 I remember that sonic booms were quite common when I was a kid growing up in MN. I kinda liked them. But I was fascinated by aviation even at six years old - my dad was a design engineer, and we moved to FL in '71 when he went to work on shuttle. I don't remember hearing sonic booms after that, except occasionally from the Cape.
@@ofthedarknessthemoonlight5412 Any idea where the aircraft were that you were hearing, was there an Air Force Base or test range nearby? Also do you remember about how frequent they were, a few times a week, a few times a month?
The Soviet Union was the largest supplier of Titanium in world. It was the logical material for them to use in this design.
I think Russia still is the World's leading supplier of titanium.
No, they were not. At one stage they were about the 5th. Google and see.
However they had developed a method of refining the metal using monstrous vacuum chambers that was cheaper than Western methods.
I was relying on the CIA for that assumption www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86T00591R000200170005-0.pdf
@@norlockv In reality, the US did buy soviet titanium because it was low cost in comparision of western titanium...in addition, the main "soviet" titanium comes from mines in ...Ukraine!
@@leneanderthalienHence, the real reason for the current war. Putrid wants to get his grubby mitts on Ukraine's resources, mineral and agricultural. Imagine the power a Russian leader/tyrant could wield if they had control of half the globe's wheat production.
Well done. Clean. Clear. Totally understandable. Well done. Thanks for the education.
Great vid as always
I've read that the Tu-144's low efficiency and lack of range was not only because of the engines, but also - and especially - because unlike Concorde it was not capable of supercruise. In other words to maintain Mach 2 it had to run its engines at very high power while Concorde only needed much lower thrust during cruise flight, reducing fuel consumption accordingly.
Concorde needed full power during the hole flight, despite not needing afterburners
@@hyprocon7973that’s comparing apples with oranges
@@hyprocon7973 , that is absolute nonsense.
The Concorde is like 25 tons lighter, come on, it's not the engines but the conception, if you want.
The Tu-144 didn’t just need full power, it had to run the afterburners for most of the flight. Their engine controls were not as advanced as the West’s and thus required a brute force approach.
I was an apprentice at BAC when we were building Concorde, also went to Farnborough and witnessed the Vulcan fly-past of the Olympus test bed. The expertise and care that went into Concorde's construction was amazing (no wonder it cost so much!) so I was not unduly surprised when the rushed development of Concordski ultimately went horribly wrong. The demise of the British civil aviation industry was a great loss to the nation.
Was before the Concorde. I think Britain does as much now for civil aviation as it ever has, building many engines for airliners and wings for some airbus planes. The UK has never really been much of a civil aviation power as far as I am aware, though you may know more. Pre-war stuff existed, little prop airliners, some post-war turbo-props like the Viscount, some small jets, Comet(the first but possibly not the best attempt, kind of dangerous), the VC-10(great looking, apparently great flying, but not super successful) and the Concorde(amazing but kind of impractical/not the most financially feasible) are basically what I can think of, though there are a couple more no doubt, but the UK has never really been a major competitor in general in civil aviation, the US with Boeing has been more competitive generally and I’ve already stated the UKs involvement with Airbus, though it would be nice if they had tried for more originally or maybe get more in the future, but who knows, historically and right now, while definitely involved, the UK is not the highest workload parter, but still, Rolls Royce engines are still pretty major. I could be completely wrong though I don’t know.
I thank Mentour for the education into the reasons why the TU-144 didn't succeed. I remember seeing the TU144 crash and burn at the Paris Air Show in 1973, on TV. To this day, I never knew the reason why the TU-144 fell from the sky until this was explained today. I also recall the very first flight, whilst the Concorde was still in the Development Phase. I am well over 70 years old, but I will never forget the British Test Pilots' name. He was called Brian Trubshaw (1924 -2001). You can only imagine the feeling of this man, as he climbed aboard the Concorde, and took that bird into the Skies............One very special person who has always had my utmost respect. He deserves a mention here. Greetings from Australia.
Excellent presentation ❤
20:31 aeronautica moment
Yo someone else plays
Yes
Moment
Regarding NASA and the TU-144D, CCCP-77114. This was extensively rebuilt as a Flying Laboratory designated TU-144LL. It completed a total of 27 flights, all within Russia, from 1996-1997, before the program got cancelled in 1999, due to a lack of funding.
A lot of people think that NASA owned or even still owns a Tu-144 but as you said all of the research flights were flown out of Russia. One of the NASA pilots was Gordon Fullerton who was one of the four pilots who flew the Space Shuttle approach and landing tests flights, and he flew on two Space Shuttle flights including STS-3 which was the one that landed at White Sands, New Mexico. He then stayed on for many years with NASA as their chief pilot and flew everything they had including the Convair 990, DC-8, F-15, F-18, B-52 including several B-52 launches of the Pegasus rocket, and he also flew the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
@@StevePemberton2 The one used is on display outside the main gate to Zhukovsky Air Base. The Only one outside of Russia is TU-144D CCCP-77112 on display on the roof of Sinsheim Auto and Technik Museum, Germany, alongside former Air France Concorde F-BVFB.
Thanks so much for this one, I really was curious about this beautiful plane.
Enjoyed well, thanks ❤️❤️
Two classes of passengers in the aircraft of the classless society.
Dear Mentour pilot. Thank you for this factual and detailed report, clearly based on facts. The Tu-144 was also noisier in the cabin because more cooling was needed at Mach 2+. Aeroflot was not a fan of the Tu-144, under communism they were not allowed to sell tickets as expensive as with the Concorde, but the requirements for the pilots and especially the mechanics were higher than for subsonic aircraft
Another Excellent video, Peter!
That sonic boom is mind blowing!😬
there's an old saying in aviation and engineering design - "you know it's right when it looks right" ... The Tupolev didn't win that beauty contest!
20:31 AERONAUTICA REFERENCE
REAL
REAL
You are the tops! A brilliant vid!
Rob
Very much enjoy your research into the history.