Russian supersonic airliner

a reply to: Blackfinger

The one at Heathrow that you sometimes taxi past has been left to rot at the moment it's such a shame last I heard it was weighed down with papers and magazines inside of it.

concorde story

Concorde was a much more advanced bird than the 144 - and a lot of other aircraft at the time, the Russians repeatedly tried to buy some of the Concorde tech for use in the 144, they knew they were well behind.

Concorde was a superior design in every way, it's a often quoted fact that the 144 was completely useless as a passenger transport, people had to shout to make themselves heard more than a seat away, very few of the internal systems ever worked fully, the result of a rushed and compromised design.

She burned fuel getting upto altitude but once there she could supercruise at Mach 2, fuel was pumped from tank to tank to maintain supersonic centre of gravity, at speed she was a seriously efficient lady.

Only pic of Concorde at Mach 2 - taken from a Tornado F3 which had only just enough fuel to rendevous over the Irish Sea for the shoot (72 or 73 pics were taken in the few mins they had) and it topped out at Mach 2.11 before the Tornado had to throttle back to save fuel.

She could be doing 300 knots or 1300 Knots, would look the same, effortless.





The Tu-160 is an impressive bird but no basis for a passenger transport, efficiency is EVERYTHING when it comes to hauling human freight, I can't honestly think of a single element of the TU-160 that would be useful for an SST, they don't even make for good test beds, rarely even stretching their legs to Mach 2, the RAF has intercepted them upto 1.85 on a few occasions I know of.

Don't get me wrong, I love the sight of a 160, but they're cruise missile trucks and that's it now.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Would we call it the 2707-ski?

a reply to: Barnalby

Probably. I'm sure it will be a copy of something in the west.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hey, given their business "model" I bet you could sell a few hundred 2707s to Emirates at least.