Tupolev Tu-144

The Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO name: Charger) was the world's first supersonic transport aircraft (SST, first flight preceded the Concorde), constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau headed by Alexei Tupolev.

A prototype first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two months before the similar Aérospatiale/British Aircraft Corporation Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the sound barrier on 5 June 1969, and on 15 July 1969 it became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2, and was at the time the fastest commercial airliner.

The Tu-144 was Tupolev's only supersonic commercial airliner venture; Tupolev's other large supersonic aircraft were designed and built to military specifications. All these aircraft benefitted from technical and scientific input from TsAGI, the Soviet equivalent of NASA.

he Soviets published the concept of the Tu-144 in an article in the January 1962 issue of the magazine Technology of the Air Transport. The air ministry started development of the Tu-144 on 26 July 1963, following approval by the Council of Ministers 10 days earlier. The plan called for five flying prototypes to be built in four years. The first aircraft was to be ready in 1966.

Despite the similarity of the Tu-144 to the Franco-British supersonic aircraft, there were significant differences in the control, navigation and engine systems. The Tu-144 was in some ways a more technologically advanced aircraft, but in areas such as range, aerodynamic sophistication, braking and engine control, it lagged behind Concorde. While Concorde utilized an electronic engine control package from Lucas, Tupolev was not permitted to purchase it for the Tu-144 as it could also be used on military planes. Concorde's designers used the aircraft's fuel as a coolant for air conditioning the cabin and hydraulics (see Concorde#Heating issues for details); Tupolev installed additional equipment on the Tu-144 to accomplish this, which increased the airliner's weight. One important consequence was that, while Concorde could supercruise, that is, maintain supersonic flight without using afterburners, the Tu-144 could not. Later work on the Tu-144S, however, resolved this shortcoming.^[1]

Tupolev continued to work on the airplane. Many substantial upgrades and changes were made on the Tu-144 prototype (serial number 68001). While both Concorde and the Tu-144 prototype had ogival delta wings, the Tu-144's wing lacked Concorde's conical camber. Production Tu-144s replaced this wing with a double-delta wing including conical camber^{[citation needed]}, and added an extra simple but practical device: a small retractable canard surface on either side of the aircraft, close to the nose, to increase lift at low speed.

Moving the elevons downward on a delta-wing aircraft increases lift, but also pitches the nose down. The canard cancels this nose-down moment, thus reducing the production Tu-144's landing speed down to 170-180 knots - though still faster than Concorde's.