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30 years of service loyal service...








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Nice shots, that's the new GMAX one isn't it?

And don't forget it's cousin TU-144D


DELTA SUPERSONICS FOREVER

Yep, Project Mach 2 gMax Concorde.

I saw a documentary about Conorde and Concordski...LOL...shame about what happened, but Aeroflot couldn't have made a supersonice airliner a success either.

Great shots Whitey. She is going to be sorely missed.

Ozzy

Great shots  there.

Beautifull shots.....i live close to the threshold of 09R at Heathrow, she will be very sadly missed. She is an incredible sight to watch as she departs, and graceful on her return. Come on Mr Branson.....twist BA's arms further, i'm sure she'll look real nice in your colors.....


I like the TU-134/154 or whatever it is attempting to melt the snow in the 'Concordski' pic.

nice shots!

i like the Tu-144 more than the Concorde. not because the Tu-144 was the FIRST supersonic airliner, no, just because it's more elegant, more beautiful...

i like the Tu-144 more than the Concorde. not because the Tu-144 was the FIRST supersonic airliner, no, just because it's more elegant, more beautiful...

Eh?

It was almost a total copy based on original early Concorde drawings lifted from France I think. But they couldn't get it quite right which is why they had to put the canards on the nose!

There is a great story about how BA were showing some Russians around the Concorde prototype towards the end of development and how one of the group (I may be wrong,  but I think it was Tupolev Jr) whipped out a camera and quickly took some shots of the engine air intakes that they hadn't managed to get right up to then for the Concordski!

That plane has some history - but it was always doomed to be a commercial flop. Luckily the lessons were learned for the Airbus project........

Eh?

It was almost a total copy based on original early Concorde drawings lifted from France I think. But they couldn't get it quite right which is why they had to put the canards on the nose!

those canards were usefull to keep the nose lower compared to the concorde.

Compare this with the BA reports about flying the concorde: it's a total different kind of aircraft
http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltrs/PDF/2000/tm/NASA-2000-tm209850.pdf NASA report about the Tu-144S (modified Tu-144D, has engines of the Tu-160) and don't read the parts about engine controls, because they were specially rebuilt

some say the russians stole the model from the europeans, others say they have the same shape because of aerodynamic needs... it doesn't matter who stole the model but it does matter that the Tu flew before the Concorde did. it's sad the Tu crashed at le Bourget...but it's good that they just restored an old one who, i'm not sure, is able to fly again...

it does matter that the Tu flew before the Concorde did. it's sad the Tu crashed at le Bourget...

Sadly the two events were linked. The Russians were engaged in an unfortunate race to get their aircraft in service before the West's model. This meant that Concordski went into 'service' with design deficiencies and without adequate testing.

Then the Russian pilots attempted to demonstrate its 'superiority' over Concorde and went way beyond both the tested envelope and probably beyond even the (modest) manoeuvarability envelope it was capable of. The results speak for themselves.

Concordski never entered into any form of realistic passenger carrying service - let alone any form of reliable passanger carrying service at consistent speeds of mach1/2. Concorde has done so for over 30 years.

Concordski was lost at a very early stage of its flying life and never flew with passengers again. The only Concorde that has been lost was due to external factors (debris on the runway) and not on account of deficiencies in the aircraft.

The two planes are in no way comparable - and although Concorde has never been a commercial success there has never been a passenger carrying aircraft to match it technically or in performance terms and there probably never will be until passenger aviation  moves to the next level. And the contribution made by Concorde to man's knowledge of flying fast at high altitude in extreme conditions will have been inestimable

...amen.

Actually the horrible truth was revealed in a Channel 4 program called Konkordski, which has since been shown on Discovery.
A French photo-recce Mirage was above the Tu and trying to take photos of the canards, and got to close, so the pilots on the Tu took evasive action, resulting in a flame out of all the engines. The pilots put it into a dive and got the engines restarted, but had lost too much altitude and couldn't recover, and then overstressed the airframe trying too. The head of the project in the French Secret Service was interviewed and admitted that that was what had happened.
However there was a rather humourous episode in the whole KGB stealing the information bit, they wanted samples of the tyres, so they asked an airport worker to scrape them, he told security who supplied him with a sample, which in the words of one of the French Secret Service had the texture of the finest American bubblegum. He was nearly wetting himself describing how he could imagine these poor scientists somewhere in the Urals trying to make tyres of the same compound...

Ozzy

Concordski never entered into any form of realistic passenger carrying service - let alone any form of reliable passanger carrying service at consistent speeds of mach1/2. Concorde has done so for over 30 years.

The Tu-144 flew passenger and mail service between Moscow and Alma-Ata (now known as Almaty)
it was retired after some years, and then was used by the russian army for some time (top brass executive flights)

the whole service life of the Tu-144 from the D model till the NASA experimental version (Tu-144LL) is hid in the shadows