h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tu-144 - The Turbulent History of World's First SST - A2521432
Author: pragotron - U683221

Whew, it took quite some time to get the entry the way I wanted it to be. As it is my first entry, I'm anxiously awaiting your comments!
I think it is a nice addition to the superb Concorde article already in the Guide.

Amazing! How DID you get all that information into such a small space? Only a few things that I thought of that could make it better. 'Terchnical' for starters... You also make reference to the Guide entry on the Concorde...but no Guide Link! Some reference to Cold War tension might also be worthwhile...especially as you mention the French/Soviet relationship (re: Mirage and Paris Air Show). Other than that I enjoyed reading this article...although some of the technical data went over my head! Look forward to seeing it in the EG

A very good piece for a first entry, especially as English is not your native tongue.

Unfortunately, that also means there are rather a lot of linguistic errors, mostly where we have special phrases. So, although what follows contains many corrections, please do not regard this as criticism - I am simply trying to help this excellent piece along its way, and into the edited guide. Also, I am mostly assuming that your facts are correct. Here we go then

(suggestion) SST is an an acronym, and so may be meaningless to many - who will then not read this. The title is also quite long, so why not try 'The First Supersonic Transport Aircraft - Tu144'. That the history was turbulent is apparent from the contents.

(suggestion) 'Most people believe ...' perhaps should be 'Most people probably believe ...' since I doubt you can back this up - and the word 'people' might need a footnote 'in the Western world' or 'outside the former Communist bloc' or similar

'terchnical' -> 'technical'

(suggestion) 'true cornerstone of civil aviation' perhaps should be 'true world-beater in civil aviation', since sadly, the cornerstones of civil aviation are probably 747s.

'thus, marked the beginning of supersonic aviation' perhaps should be 'thus began supersonic civil transport aviation', which not only reads better, but is factually accurate (some jet fighters went supersonic during WW2).

'The actual truth' -> 'The truth'

'both of which is' -> 'both of which are'

'reduced travelling time by 24.9 hours each journey' needs clarification, since I think the comparison is perhaps between rail and air.

'cross the border of sound' -> 'break the sound barrier'

'civil airplane for over hundred passengers was a whole new dimension' is hard to justify, given the existence of the (British) Victor and Vulcan bombers.

'hull' perhaps should be 'structure', since you do not mean just the fuselage, and the word hull is odd in respect of aircraft anyway.

'swept-back wings which were de-facto standard in civil Soviet aviation' -> 'swept-back wings which were the de facto standard in civil aviation', as this was also true in the West prior to Concorde. You should also put 'de facto' in italics, without a hyphen

'Concorde's tires' -> 'Concorde's tyres'

'concurrents' perhaps should be 'competitors', as although concurrents is not wrong, it is a rather unusual word, and more often means concurs in opinion rather than time when used as a noun.

Perhaps you should explain what 'afterburning' is, and why it is such a disadvantage (very high fuel consumption), and why they would want to use it.

'its engines were located right under the fuselage, which heated the passenger cabin' - but on a Concorde, the lower fuselage is equipment and cargo bays, and fuel tanks. Isn't the Tu144 similar? And anyway, travel at Mach 2.285 heats the fuselage all on its own, and the engines do provide the power which also drives the air conditioning system. So it's very unlikely indeed that the engines heat the passengers.

Is the seating comparison of 126:100 like for like?

'has been halved' -> 'had been halved'

It might be advisable to explain what canard wings are.

'which, due to aerodynamical reasons, led to engine failure' perhaps would be better as -> 'which led to engine failure for aerodynamic reasons'. Anyway, aerodynamical is wrong

'Needless to say that this event ...' -> 'Needless to say, this event ...'

'were conducted' -> 'were started'

'Aeroflot relation' does not read well, but I am not sure what is meant here.

'socialist economical system' -> 'socialist economic system'

'not pursued farther' -> 'not pursued further'

'passenger amount' -> 'passenger payload'

'additional four' -> 'an additional four' or 'four additional'

'sub- and supersonic' -> 'subsonic and supersonic'

'for sale by an American company'. Can you not say which one?

What is 'ASCC'

'delicate regions' perhaps should be 'vulnerable regions'. 'delicate' is wrong, but I am not sure if 'vulnerable' is very much better. Perhaps the whole phrase should be 'reinforced with titanium or steel at strategic points'

'inlet ducts' perhaps should be 'air intakes'

'compromise the longer fuselage' -> 'accomodate the longer fuselage' maybe? 'compromise' is very wrong.

Well, that's it. Again, well done for your first effort.

I had never heard of this and found the entry very interesting.

Well done!

sprout

Thanks for your feedback!

@Old Hairy: a special 'thank you' for your effort, it's very valuable for me.

A few remarks as regards your post:

The Victor and Vulcan bombers are quite a bit smaller than the Tu-144, and they weren't even capable of reaching Mach 1, as far as I know. Also, atomic bombs don't need much travelling comfort, but passengers do. So I think it's justified to call a SST a whole new dimension.

I'm going to check my sources again as regards the positioning of the engines.

Sorry, I don't get the meaning of "Is the seating comparison of 126:100 like for like?" Tu-144 had 126 seats, Concorde 100, but I have to admit that the Tu-144 prototype never saw any real passengers.

I will put an explanation of ASCC (Air Standards Co-ordinating Commitee) reporting names in a footnote.

Well, now I've got some writing to do ...

Fantastic Entry - should be no problem to get it Edited.

One Tu-144 can be seen in a Museum in Sinsheim, southern Germany. (They also have a Concorde there, IIRC - yep just checked)

LINK here: http://www.technik-museum.de

Tu-144 was in western media often called Concordski.

Did it ever carry passengers, I had it that it flew 50 or so times in regular flights.

Detail:

"Moreover, the engines were not able to hold supersonic speeds without continuous afterburning, which severely reduced its range."

According to my book, the Tu-144 achieved a cruise speed of mach 1.6 without afterburner. Only flights abover mach 2 could be sustained with the afterburner.

Fantastic Entry!

HELL

I remember the Tu-144 Charger being a more or less unbeatable card in the 'Airliners' version of Top Trumps (see A1111320 if you need an explanation ) - certainly better than Concorde. So I grew up occasionally wondering why we didn't hear about these mysterious beasts much in the West.

So it's great to come across this entry which explains it all so well, and confirms most of the rumours that I'd picked up over the ensuing years and adds quite a lot of information I'd never known - the collaboration with the Americans being particularly interesting. Was that abandoned in 1999, or is it still going on?

One thing I did hear that hasn't been confirmed is that after they were taken out of passenger service, they carried mail for a few years, but that was eventually abandoned because of safety concerns. Is that true?

Okay, let's see...

@Hell: Two years ago I visited Tu-144D 77112 in Sinsheim (and also An-22 in Speyer); although they scrapped all the interiour (there were no seats, nothing), it was still very interesting, because you could look into the cockpit. I think I stood there half an hour, just staring at the cockpit and taking photographs. This summer, I'm going to Monino museum near Moscow, there's a Tu-144S (77106) on display, among other jewels of Soviet aviation history.
I think I will include links to the places where Tu-144 may be found.

There were 55 passenger flights between Nov 1st, '77 and June 1st, '78, all with TU-144S.

I think your informations regarding afterburning and cruising speed are correct, I will update the entry.

@Number Six: The cooperation with NASA is over, I don't know if the NASA project itself is still operating, but I remember reading a Newsweek story about a new Boeing pseudo-SST, which travels at speeds slightly under Mach 1, because they believe this to be more efficient. So this is perhaps the result of the NASA effort, but I'm not sure.

The passenger flights were terminated 1978 due to a test-flight-crash. Because of this, the cargo flights later were also terminated, but I don't know the exact date. One of the cargo-flying planes was brought to a museum in 1980, so one might guess that they continued cargo services for another one or two years after stopping passenger flights.
However, they didn't stop test flights until the mid-1980's.

It's nice to talk about the Tu-144 with you all

For now, I will work on the updated version of the entry.

I've corrected some errors, and tried to include your suggestions. I've also added some links to other entries, so please enjoy the updated version , and once again,

Brill!

Same here. Brilliant Entry.

I have not been to Sinsheim yet, but saw the documetary about bringing the Tu-144 there. As you imagine it was a minor logistics wonder to get it there.

Fascinating aircraft. Fantastic Entry. Thanks!

HELL

Nothing to add really other than this is a really good entry, I'm really surprised this is only your first

The author seems to have left the building - flea market time?

Yes that's the right place for this.

It's rather good isn't it

How long's your e-mail now? Wanna keep going?

I've got eight there at the moment.

If you want to keep going, then that's fine with me. Obviously I'm going to have to take a break soon in preparation for the Euro 2004 final, but I can come back and do the seconding etc later on in the evening if need be

I should also point out that this clearing up around PR is keeping me from doing the dishes, for which I am very very grateful. Cheers

Erm, why send it anywhere? Seems to me that the only thing that stops this from being pickable is having the picture in there, which can be easily sorted by a Sub.

No?

I agree. Why not pick it?

HELL

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