tu-144 vs concorde

witch plane had better performance and was more succesful???
i heard that the tu144 was alowed to fly over the soviet union supersonic so
it coullb be more succesfull and all ...

That is a fabulous photo of the pair of them together, like huge Airfix models! Where is that location?

Back to your question of which was the more successful, Overall it has to be Concorde but the Tu-144 has several 'victories' it can point to.

The Tu-144 was the first SST to fly and it was the first to exceed mach 2.

It was also marginally faster (about 100mph) so Tupolev has the claim of first and fastest.

By coincidence the production run of both types ended after 16 aircraft so that ones a tie.

The fact that it was allowed to fly over the USSR isn't really a measure of success, large tracts of the USSR are uninhabited and its not really that different from flying over the Atlantic as far as that goes, it certainly doesn't mean that the Tu-144 was quieter or anything.

In fact it was considerably less efficient than Concorde as it needed to keep its afterburners lit throughout the Supersonic flight regime whereas Concorde could switch its burners off and maintain 'supercruise'.

The ultimate measure of success though must surely be the fact that the Tu-144 made 55 passenger flights in a 7 month period between Oct '77 and June '78 and never carried passengers again, Concorde on the other hand operated supersonic passenger flights on a daily basis for 27 years, beginning in Jan 1976, interrupted only by the tragic loss of the Air France Concorde that was hit by debris on the runway in 2001.

ok thanks
i dont kno where that picture was taken was i just got it of airliners.net
did the tu-144 get out of service because of the airshow crash???

The picture was taken in Sinsheim, Germany. If you go to airliners.net and search the photo database for 'unmuth sinsheim' there are a LOAD of them, including some impressive night shots.

The Tu-144 wasnt removed from service because of the airshow crash, it was removed after a second crash in 1978, a whole 5 years after the airshow crash.

cheers Richard, I'll be sure to go and have a look

I think Tu-144 is better because it goes faster but concorde has a longer range so I guesse they are quite the same in which is better. I never flown on one but if I did then I could've told the answer straight away.

Thanks for the new desktop wallpaper JCiS

All That Is Right And The Concorde Had A Better Safety Record While The TU-144 Had A Poor Safety Record.

If you dont have the chance to go to Sinsheim (highly recommended), than take a look here:

[img]http://www.hitechweb.genezis.eu/concorde_vs_tu-144.files/nadpis_special_update.jpg[/i mg]

Hitechweb special update - Concorde vs. Tu-144

[edit on 21-9-2009 by matej]

I would say the Concorde simply because of the 27yr operational history and remarably less accidents than the TU-144.

But in my opinion the Tu-144 was a much better aircraft.

Hi, planes fans.

Don't you think we can NOT compare the "specs" of rivals,
from Russia, because IF they have them, it is because
they stealed/copied the technology ??

If I remember well, Russia have **copies** of:
the Boeing 727, 3 engines.
the VC-10, 4 engines, at the back?
the DC-8 or Boeing 707, 4 engines under wings,
the copy of the Space shuttle ! ! ! the most obvious ! !
the copy of the Fiat car,
the copy of the Packard car,
and so on, and so on. . .

They are a little bit different with choppers. . . B-)
And they are unique with the EKRANOPLANE:
Try IXQUICK with that word. B-)

Blue skies.

The only western aeroplane the Russians copied and produced was the Boeing B-29 and that was under protest by Andrei Tupolev who had his own bomber design which he believed to be superior, the Tu-64.

The Russians did take inspiration from other aircraft, but so did everyone else. Indeed Boeing themselves got the 727 layout from De Havilland in 1958, four years before they flew the 727, when during a visit to Hatfield they were shown the design for the Trident (DH 121).

Boeing also developed the podded engine installation as used on the B-47, B-52 and 707 from captured German research and many of these German designers ended up working in Russia and simply carried on their own work, so who's the copyist?

The VC-10 and Il-62 were concurrent designs so there was no opportunity for any copying as there would be no time to validate the layout if it was simply copied.

The Space Shuttle/Buran is a bit blatant though

The Russians, or at least Beriev, also designed, but did not produce, a copy of the Lockheed S-3 Viking.

a reply to: Anonymous ATS

Besides a crash at the Paris airshow where pilots were throwing it around like a fighter plane, something it was not designed for, what other crashes or failures were there.

So far as I know the Tu-144 had no serious incidents?

a reply to: Anonymous ATS

The Tu-144D version was comparable with Concorde and the Tu-144DA certified in 1983 was superior in performance. Comparison of the Tu-144D with Concorde on a Paris-JFK route revealed the Tu-144D could carry commercial loads whilst Concorde could not:

Concorde: Range: 6,500km/3,550nm; 185,070kg MTOW (120 pax); --8,845kg (90 pax) PAYLOAD; -92,080kg MZFW; -95,884kg MFW.

Tu-144D Koliesov RD-36-51A x 4 turbojet: Range: 6,500km/3,500nm; 180,000kg MTOW; -11,760kg (120 pax) PAYLOAD; -98,000kg MZFW; -98,000kg MFW.

Concorde and the re-engined Tu-144D both had comparable sized fuel tanks/ capacity (circa 95-98t) however the Tu-144D had far greater lifting capacity and in 1983 the Tu-144DA was re-certified with 125,000kg fuel capacity and greater 235,00kg MCTOW permitting a maximum range of 4,042nm with 130 passengers.

The longest range commercial flight by Concorde in 1984 from Washington to Nice demonstrated 3,965nm with just 54 passengers.

What screwed the Tu-144DA was east west rivalry which excluded the Tu-144 from operating in any viable markets.

a reply to: sy.gunson

So, what you're saying is that Tupolev made a superior version of the the Tu144 four years after the last Concorde had been built. This model was never operated on passenger flights (even internally or to, say, China) , while Concorde still had circa 20 years of service ahead of it.

Whoopee :-)


What you are forgetting is that the Tu 144 suffered from the same level of agricultural comfort levels and poor build quality that have blighted ALL Soviet transports. See also Aeroflots wholesale switch to Boeing and Airbus as soon as they had the chance and current efforts to reinvent commercial aviation in Russia. Also, Tu144 could not maintain supersonic cruise on dry thrust. That superior range is subsonic, which renders it rather pointless. As pointless, one might say, as a debate as to which was the better SST when one served for 27 years and the other for 7 months. By the time of the Tu 144D, BAE had moved on to the potentially vastly superior, 250 passenger, BAE AST. But no-one wanted to pay for it.

The concept of Tu144 was ok, but it's execution was awful. Indeed, the problems of the Tu 144 serve to illustrate just what a brilliant technical achievement the Concorde's successful operational career represent.

originally posted by: sy.gunson
What screwed the Tu-144DA was east west rivalry which excluded the Tu-144 from operating in any viable markets.

Wrong. What screwed the Tu-144 was it was noisy inside, unreliable, unsafe, inefficient.

This sums it up very well.

] Unlike Concorde development, the Tu-144 project was also strongly driven by ideologically and politically motivated haste of Soviet self-imposed racing against Concorde; Aleksei Poukhov, one of Tupolev's designers, reminiscences: "For the Soviet Union to allow the West to get ahead and leave it behind at that time was quite unthinkable. We not only had to prevent the West from getting ahead, but had to compete and leapfrog them, if necessary. This was the task Khruschev set us... We knew that when Concorde's maiden flight had been set for February or March, 1969, we would have to get our plane up and flying by the end of 1968."[N 3]The Soviet way of thinking placed a great emphasis on completing tasks on time, even if this meant the end product was rushed, crude, inefficient and unsafe

en.wikipedia.org...