How fast did Tu 144 fly. Russian aviation

Konstantin Bogdanov, columnist for RIA Novosti.

Forty years ago near Paris. The car had not even entered the passenger routes yet, it will enter them later, but it will not fly for long - until 1978. What happened to the Soviet "super carcass" and its overseas alter ego - ? Where and why has humanity put its supersonic passenger aircraft?

June - non-flying time

On the first days of June 2013, there are two dates at once that are important for the fate of the Tu-144. Both are connected with catastrophes, which actually framed the fate of the Soviet supersonic liner.

On June 3, 1973, during a demonstration flight in the French Le Bourget, a Soviet supersonic aircraft crashed - fourteen people died, including the head of the Tu-144 test program, Major General Vladimir Benderov.

The real reasons for that fall have remained "hushed up". This was greatly facilitated by the lack of telemetry: there was no recording of negotiations in the cockpit, and many parameter recorders were destroyed in the fall. As a result, the disaster was attributed to a coincidence, transparently hinting at the fault of the crew.

In the Soviet Union, unofficial attempts were made to hang all the dogs on the French Mirage fighter escorting the liner, which allegedly inadvertently maneuvered near the Tu-144, forcing the crew to dodge sharply, as a result, due to the resulting overloads aircraft fuselage shattered.

Another, much more plausible version is also known: a raw, unfinished car went on a demonstration flight. Until the last moment, on-board equipment was mounted and reconfigured on the liner, and the control system, according to a number of reports, was put into an abnormal state during these "fine settings".

One way or another, but the machine that was supposed to demonstrate to the whole world the successes of "developed socialism" collapsed in the Parisian suburbs. Unpleasant, but okay: this did not prevent the airliners from being put into trial operation on passenger routes.

However, on May 23, 1978, a second disaster occurs: in a test flight, an experimental Tu-144D makes an emergency landing on a field near Yegoryevsk. The plane caught fire in the air, but they managed to land it. Two crew members who were unable to leave the burning car were killed.

According to the results of June 1, 1978 (that is, 35 years ago - here it is, the second "anniversary"), the operation of the Tu-144 on passenger routes was temporarily stopped. As it turns out, forever.

jump over the head

Tu-144 was a very interesting, but completely crude machine.

Thus, the wing structure was made of large panels, which immediately created the problem of excessive local stresses due to inhomogeneities, and in addition, allowed cracks to propagate over long distances. It also turned out that the stress level in the airframe exceeds the calculated one.

The NK-144A engines were a huge problem. Their technology could not be debugged in any way - they simply burned out. Then it turned out that the efficiency of these engines is such that you can’t even dream of the range of 4000-4500 km specified in the terms of reference under a maximum payload of 15 tons - 3000 km turned out to be the limit. ("Concord" with its 13 tons squeezed over 6200 km.)

The length of the route on the base route Tu-144 "Moscow - Alma-Ata" was 3260 km, and it was close to the limit of the car's capabilities with the number of passengers carried. The RD-36-51A engines were tested on the Tu-144D, and it was assumed that they would solve the range problem, but this project was never completed. There was practically nowhere to land a car in the USSR, and alternate airfields of potential routes were especially difficult.

Summarizing, we can say that the Tu-144 was killed by two weaknesses: a stressed design and technological flaws, on the one hand, and an underdeveloped base and operation infrastructure, on the other.

Any of these problems, with a certain will, could be dealt with. And not such monstrous machines were brought to acceptable serial reliability. And even the first traditional problem of Russia (infrastructure) also lends itself to persistent ones: in the end, the airfield network was rebuilt for the first Tu-104 turbojet liner - and there were so many problems with its basing at an early stage ...

But the combination of two such difficulties at once, in the absence of a clearly expressed imperative for the introduction of supersonic civil aviation on the part of the relevant ministry and the Central Committee, sent the Tu-144 to eternal fun.

Everyone is out of luck

You can object - after all, if done in a human way, it will fly. Look, people have been flying Concorde for how many years, and why are we worse?

Yes, nothing worse, especially if you remember how this Concorde flew. Both machines - both the Tu-144 and the Concorde - faced their own set of difficulties.

The Soviet liner could, to a certain extent, give a damn about fuel efficiency and, in general, various kinds of market factors that impede a quick entry into the market (this always happens when a fundamentally new technical system appears, the development of which collapses already existing niches). But its development was hampered by technical miscalculations in the design, insufficient manufacturability, and mainly by a very narrow scope.

The Soviet Union could not find a sufficient number of long-range interesting routes within the country for the Tu-144. No one would have given a Soviet airliner access to the transatlantic route from Paris or London to New York, just as Western companies with Boeings would not have been given the domestic Soviet air transportation market.

(Even at the moment, let me remind you, there are plenty of Boeings in our country, but foreigners are still not allowed on domestic flights.) It would be difficult for the Tu-144 to fit into the great continental route Europe-Russia-Japan.

"Concorde" was well developed technologically, received an acceptable basing system, took root on transatlantic routes, but "market factors" ate it. As a result, he surrendered to cheap and massive subsonic hard workers, remaining a sort of curiosity, which, if necessary, can be rented for a lot of money under a special charter (and this also did not allow him to pay off).

As a result, when the liner crashed near Paris in 2000, the operators just did not breathe a sigh of relief - well, they say, now you can write it off with a clear conscience.

Children of the wrong future

John Tolkien once said: "Inventing a green sun is not difficult; it is much more difficult to create a world in which it would look natural." To paraphrase this maxim in the context we are interested in, we can say: creating a supersonic airliner is not as difficult as creating a supersonic civil aviation and the corresponding air transportation industry.

Because aviation is not only and so much even airplanes. These are airfields, rules and personnel. This is the market, after all. Supersonic aircraft required "supersonic infrastructure" to win the skies.

But the triumphant alternative, amid the fuel crisis of the mid-1970s, was those who were able to squeeze out tedious profit margins without fundamentally overhauling the entire airline industry. You know them very well - all these big-bodied subsonic long-haul Boeings squeezed out the Concorde even from its native transatlantic route.

It turned out that they easily and cheaply do the right thing in a tolerable time. And speed comes at a cost. And the closer to our era, the more obvious the high speed of movement in physical space began to give way to the speed, reliability and throughput of communication channels. The world of the 1950s-1960s, understood as a constant increase in human mobility in space, has given way to a world in which, in general, it is not always necessary to move for high mobility.

The world of supersonic civil aviation is not our world, let's be aware of this already. Our world can still become different, but in its current form, the Tu-144 and the Concorde, in general, have nothing to do in it, even if all technical problems are solved and half the planet is flooded with cheap kerosene.

However, the 1970s were painfully unsuccessful in order to break the mold on the knee and build civil aviation anew.

Did not work out. Now let these impetuous beauties stand in museums and remind us that the future is multivariate, and its shadows whimsically fight in the present for human souls. So that later the owners of these souls with an important air broadcast that everything happened the way it happened, because "it could not have been otherwise."

• Tu-144S ("004") - Production aircraft from NK-144A.
• Tu-144D ("004D") - Production aircraft with RD-36-51A.
• Tu-144LL - Flying laboratory with NK-32-1.

Tu-144 modifications

• Tu-144 ("044")- prototype (1968)
• Tu-144S ("004")- Production aircraft with NK-144A. (1971)
• Tu-144D ("004D")- Production aircraft with RD-36-51A. (1974)
• Tu-144DA- project with engines "61". (late 70s.)
• Tu-144P- Jammer project. (late 70s.)
• Tu-144PR- project director-scout. (late 70s.)
• Tu-144K
• Tu-144KP- a project of an aviation-missile complex. (late 70s.)
• DP-2- long-range interceptor project. (late 70s.)
• Tu-144LL- Flying laboratory based on Tu-144D with NK-32-1. (1996)

scheme Tu-144

Passenger supersonic

Successes in the creation of supersonic combat aircraft in the 1950s, including heavy ones, created a favorable environment for studying the possibility of creating a supersonic passenger aircraft (SPA). In the second half of the 1950s, first experimental and then serial supersonic heavy military aircraft appeared on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and, almost immediately, on their basis, the world's leading aviation firms prepared projects of ATP of various aerodynamic and layout schemes. A detailed analysis and further study of the proposed ATP projects based on the first supersonic bombers showed that the creation of an effective competitive ATP by modifying a military prototype is an extremely difficult task (in contrast to the process of creating the first jet passenger aircraft based on subsonic heavy combat aircraft). The first supersonic combat heavy aircraft, in terms of their design solutions, basically met the requirements of a relatively short-term supersonic flight. For ATP, it was required to ensure a long cruising flight at speeds corresponding to at least M = 2, plus the specifics of the task of transporting passengers required a significant increase in the reliability of all elements of the aircraft structure, subject to more intensive operation, taking into account the increase in the duration of flights in supersonic modes. Gradually, analyzing all possible options for technical solutions, aviation specialists, both in the USSR and in the West, came to the firm opinion that an economically efficient SPS should be designed as a fundamentally new type of aircraft.

In the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev, the solution of the problem of designing SPS was approached in the early 60s. The first technical proposals of the Design Bureau for the SPS were mainly based on the projects of long-range bombers: primarily on the projects of the Tu-22 family aircraft ("105A" and "106A" - "134"), as well as the project of the strategic strike aircraft "135" - 135P. Later, when work began on the Tu-144, S.M. Yeger proposed a preliminary design of the Tu-144 with NK-144 engines, which, in terms of its layout solutions, repeated the Tu-135P project. In addition to the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev, OKB-23 of V.M. Myasishcheva was engaged in preliminary study on the topic of ATP in the USSR. At the end of the 50s, this design bureau prepared proposals for several original SPS projects (M-53, M-55A, M-55B and M-55V).

The beginning of the 60s was marked by the deployment of practical work on the Anglo-French ATP "Concord" (the beginning of research on the topic in 1955-1956) with a cruising supersonic flight speed of more than M = 2 and a flight range with 120-140 passengers on board 6000-6500 km . At the same time, the main US aviation firms, based on their vision of the future ATP market, began work on designing a much larger ATP than the Concorde, designed to carry 250-300 passengers at a cruising speed of up to M = 3 at a distance of 7000-8000 km (projects Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas).

Creation

An analysis of the conditions for the existence of the future ATP, carried out in the USSR in relation to the level of domestic aircraft manufacturing and its immediate prospects, as well as the economic capabilities of the country and the needs of the Civil Air Fleet, showed that for the USSR the most preferable way is to create a domestic ATP in terms of its expected flight performance data close to English - French Concorde. During the creation of the Soviet SPS, a number of scientific and technical problems were posed before the domestic aviation science and industry, which our neither subsonic passenger nor military supersonic aviation faced. First of all, to ensure the required performance characteristics of the ATP (double flight at a distance of up to 6500 km with 100-120 passengers, in combination with acceptable takeoff and landing data), it was necessary to provide a significant improvement in the aerodynamic perfection of the aircraft during cruising flights at M = 2-2, 2. The aerodynamic quality in these modes had to be increased to 7.5-8.0, which significantly exceeded the values ​​obtained for the aerodynamic schemes of domestic heavy supersonic combat aircraft of that period (the calculated value of Kmax for M = 2 for the Tu-22 was 4.4 ; for M-50 - 5.5; for M-52 - 5.6; for Tu-135 and M-56 - 6.4). It was necessary to solve the issues of stability and controllability of a heavy aircraft during flights in subsonic, transonic and supersonic regions, to develop practical methods for balancing the aircraft in all these modes, taking into account the minimization of aerodynamic losses. A long flight at a speed of M = 2 was associated with research and ensuring the structural strength of airframe units at elevated temperatures (close to 100-120 ° C), it was necessary to create heat-resistant structural materials, lubricants, sealants, and also to develop types of structures capable of operating for a long time in conditions of cyclic aerodynamic heating. Very high demands were placed on the units of the power plant: it was necessary to create powerful and economical engines that would operate stably in supersonic flight conditions, to solve the problems of regulating air intakes operating in a wide range of altitudes and speeds, ensuring the regulation of the required inlet air flow with the smallest possible aerodynamic losses. It was most rational to carry out a long supersonic cruising flight at high altitudes, respectively, the head and modular design bureaus were tasked with developing principles for creating new air conditioning systems, and then specific units and systems that provide comfortable conditions for passengers and crew at high altitudes (up to 20 km ) and during long flights with significant heating of the airframe structural elements. It was necessary to create a number of new devices and systems that provide automatic flight control, accurate navigation in conditions of long-term supersonic flight and automatic landing. There was a need to study the environmental features of the operation of the SPS, associated with the release into the atmosphere of a large amount of exhaust gases from engines at high altitudes and their effect on the ozone layer, the effects of noise and sonic boom on people, animals and buildings, the impact of long flights at high altitudes on passengers and crew associated with exposure to solar radiation. When creating the ATP, based on the conditions for its painless implementation into the existing transport system, it was necessary to take into account the peculiarities of domestic and international air transportation systems, existing airports and air traffic control when designing the ATP.

All these tasks, with the involvement of Western experience to a certain extent, were studied in detail at TsAGI, at the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev, and other Design Bureaus involved in the program for creating the Soviet SPS. The official basis for the start of work on the domestic SPS of the first generation (SPS-1), which received the designation Tu-144, was the Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 798-271 of July 16, 1963 and the Order of the MAP No. 276 of July 26 of the same year OKB A.N. Tupolev was asked to design and build an ATP with a cruising flight speed of 2300-2700 km / h, the practical range of supersonic flight with 80-100 passengers was specified as 4000-4500 km; in the reloading version with additional fuel tanks and with 30-50 passengers - 6000-6500 km. Operation from airfields of the first class with a normal takeoff weight of 120-130 tons. It was supposed in 1966-1967 to build 5 copies of the Tu-144 (2 copies for strength tests). Given the technical complexity of obtaining the maximum flight range of the first domestic ATP, it was decided to work in two stages: at the first stage, the practical flight range achieved was to be 4000-4500 km, at the second stage, the Tu-144 was to reach a range of 6500 km. Engines for the Tu-144, in accordance with the recommendations of CIAM, were given by-pass turbofans with afterburners. OKB N.D. Kuznetsov, on the basis of the DTRD NK-8 gas generator, it was undertook to create for the future Soviet ATP DTRDF, designated NK-144, with a take-off thrust of 20,000 kgf and a specific fuel consumption in supersonic cruising mode at the level of 1.35-1.45 kg / kgf hour. It should be noted that the success of the Tu-144 project to a large extent depended on the success of the engine builders. The choice for the Tu-144 DTRDF, operating on afterburner in cruising modes, was by no means disputable, it made it possible to obtain for the Tu-144 a less stressful engine in terms of temperature (respectively, more reliable and less expensive), as well as a more optimized engine for flying in a wide range of altitudes and speeds than in the case of choosing a single-circuit turbojet engine. Great doubts were caused by the possibility of obtaining moderate fuel consumption in cruising modes on this type of engine and, as a result, ensuring the required flight range. All this was not a big secret either for Tupolev or for MAP.

Even at the design stage of Myasishchev's supersonic strategic launch vehicles M-50 / M-52 and M-56, as well as the development of the SPS M-53 and M-55 projects, OKB-23 received calculated results indicating that an acceptable supersonic range could be obtained flight on a heavy aircraft is quite realistic, provided that engines with specific fuel consumption within 1.2 kg / kgf hour are used. Such an engine was created in prototypes by the beginning of the 60s in the USSR - it was a single-circuit non-afterburning turbojet engine "16-17" (take-off thrust 18000 kgf, specific fuel consumption in cruising mode 1.15 k / kgf hour), developed in the Design Bureau -16 P.F.Zubtsa. The Anglo-French, choosing the type of engine for their Concorde, went an intermediate compromise path, choosing for it a single-circuit turbofan Bristol "Olympus" 593 with a small degree of forcing and specific fuel consumption in afterburner 1,327 kg / kgf hour (takeoff thrust in afterburner 17200 kgf) . Unfortunately, work on Myasishchev's projects of heavy supersonic machines was closed, respectively, in the early 60s, the development line of powerful economical non-afterburning single-circuit turbojet engines was temporarily interrupted in the USSR (0KB-16 was transferred to the subject of solid rocket engines), and, as a result, to the beginning of the design Tu-144, OKB A.N. Tupolev had to take a technical risk, relying on the DTRDF NK-144. Soon, in 1964, when the design of the Tu-144 with the NK-144 was in full swing, it was decided to revive work on economical powerful non-afterburning turbojet engines for the ATP: in OKB-36, under the leadership of P.A. Kolesov, the design of a single-circuit turbojet engine RD-36- 51 for the Tu-144 with a maximum takeoff thrust of 20,000 kgf and an expected specific fuel consumption in supersonic cruising flight mode of 1.23 kg/kgf h long-range supersonic attack aircraft T-4 OKB P.O. Sukhoi).

Andrey Nikolaevich decided to entrust the design of the Tu-144 to Department "K", which had previously dealt with unmanned vehicles and had sufficient experience in the field of mastering long-term flight at speeds exceeding M = 2 (Tu-121 strike unmanned aircraft, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft - serial Tu-123 and experienced Tu-139). Andrey Nikolayevich appointed A.A. Tupolev as the chief designer and head of work on the Tu-144. It was under his leadership, with the involvement of the best forces of domestic aviation science and technology, that the ideology and future appearance of the Tu-144 was born in the K Department. In the future, after the death of A.N. Tupolev and the appointment of A.A. Tupolev as the head of the enterprise, the topic of the Tu-144 was led by Yu.N. Popov and B.A. Gantsevsky. Soon, the Tu-144 becomes one of the main and priority topics in the activities of the Design Bureau and the entire MAP for the next 10 years.

The aerodynamic appearance of the Tu-144 was determined mainly by obtaining a long flight range in supersonic cruising mode, provided that the required stability and controllability characteristics and the specified take-off and landing characteristics were obtained. Based on the promised specific costs of the NK-144, at the initial design stage, the task was set to obtain Kmax = 7 in the cruising supersonic flight mode. According to the total economic, technological, weight considerations, the number M of a cruise flight was taken to be 2.2. During the study of the aerodynamic layout of the Tu-144 in the Design Bureau and TsAGI, several dozen possible options were considered. The "normal" scheme with horizontal tail in the rear fuselage was studied, it was abandoned, since such tail gave up to 20% in the overall balance of the aircraft's drag. They also abandoned the "duck" scheme, evaluating the problem of the influence of the destabilizer on the main wing. Finally, based on the conditions for obtaining the required aerodynamic quality and obtaining minimal focus differences at subsonic and supersonic speeds, we settled on a low-wing scheme - "tailless" with a composite delta wing of an ogival shape (the wing was formed by two triangular surfaces with a sweep angle along the leading edge of 78 ° - for the front influx parts and 55 ° - for the rear base part), with four DTRDFs located under the wing, with vertical tail located along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, and a tricycle retractable landing gear. The design of the airframe mainly used traditional aluminum alloys. The wing was formed from symmetrical profiles and had a complex twist in two directions: in the longitudinal and transverse. This achieved the best flow around the wing surface in supersonic mode, in addition, such a twist contributed to the improvement of longitudinal balancing in this mode. Elevons were placed along the entire trailing edge of the wing, consisting of four sections on each half-wing. The wing structure is multi-spar, with a powerful working skin made of solid plates made of aluminum alloys, the central part of the wing and elevons were made of titanium alloys. The elevon sections were powered by two irreversible boosters. The rudder was also deflected with the help of irreversible boosters and consisted of two independent sections. The aerodynamic shape of the fuselage was chosen from the conditions for obtaining the minimum drag in supersonic mode. In order to achieve this, they even went to some complication of the design of the aircraft. A characteristic feature of the Tu-144 was the descending, well-glazed forward fuselage in front of the pilot's cabin, which provided good visibility at high takeoff and landing angles of attack, inherent in an aircraft with a small aspect ratio wing. The lowering and lifting of the forward fuselage was carried out using a hydraulic drive. When designing the deviating non-pressurized part and its units, it was possible to maintain the smoothness of the skin at the joints of the movable part with the pressurized cabin and the rest of the fuselage surface.

The shape of the engine nacelles was determined mainly by layout considerations and the conditions for the reliability of the operation of the power plant. Four DTRDF NK-144 were placed under the wing close to each other. Each engine had its own air intake, and two adjacent air intakes were combined into a common unit. Underwing air intakes - flat with a horizontal wedge. The flow deceleration at supersonic flight speeds was carried out in three oblique shocks, in a direct closing shock, and in a subsonic diffuser. The operation of each air intake was provided by an automatic control system that changed the position of the wedge panels and the bypass flap depending on the operating mode of the NK-144 engine. The length of the engine nacelles was determined by the size of the engines and the requirements of TsAGI and CIAM to ensure the necessary length of the air intake channels for the normal operation of the engines. It should be noted that, unlike the design of the air intakes and engines of the Concorde, where this process went as a single whole, the design of the NK-144 and engine nacelles with air intakes went as two largely independent processes, which to some extent led to oversized engine nacelles and in the future to many mutual inconsistencies in the operation of engines and air intake systems. It was supposed, as on the Concorde, to introduce a landing braking system due to the engine reverse, it was planned to install the reverse on the two extreme engines (the reverse system was not completed, as a result, the experimental and production vehicles were operated with a braking parachute).

Cabin equipment Tu-144 [JPEG 468x300 44]

The main landing gear retracted into the wing, the front landing gear retracted into the front of the fuselage in the space between the two air intake blocks. The small construction height of the wing required a reduction in the size of the wheels; as a result, a twelve-wheeled bogie with relatively small diameter wheels was used in the main landing gear. The main fuel supply was located in the wing caisson tanks. The front caisson tanks of the wing and an additional keel tank served to balance the aircraft. The main work on the choice of the optimal aerodynamic scheme of the Tu-144 in the design bureau was headed by G.A. Cheremukhin, the unit headed by V.M. On the Tu-144, many fundamental solutions of the remote control system were actually applied, in particular, the steering units of the aircraft control actuator worked out the signals of the system for improving stability and controllability along the longitudinal and track channels. In some modes, this measure made it possible to fly with static instability. The choice of the ideology of the Tu-144 control system is largely the merit of G.F. Naboyshchikov. L.M. Rodnyansky, who previously worked on control systems at the design bureau of P.O. Sukhoi and V.M. Myasishchev, and in the early 60s did a lot to fine-tune the very "raw" control system of the Tu-22. The cockpit was designed taking into account the requirements of modern ergonomics, it was carried out for four: the first and second pilots occupied the two front seats, the flight engineer was placed behind them, the fourth place on the first experimental machine was intended for the experimental engineer. In the future, it was supposed to limit the crew to three pilots. The decoration and layout of the Tu-144 passenger compartment corresponded to the world requirements for modern design and comfort; the latest finishing materials were used in their decoration. The flight and navigation equipment of the Tu-144 was equipped with the most advanced systems that domestic avionics could give at that time: a perfect autopilot and on-board electronic computer automatically maintained the course; the pilots could see on the screen located on the dashboard where the aircraft was currently located and how many kilometers were left to the destination; landing approach was carried out automatically at any time of the day under difficult weather conditions, etc. - all this was a serious leap forward for our aviation.

The Tu-144 model was first shown in 1965 at the Paris Air Show, where it was announced that the first flight was scheduled for 1968.

The construction of the first experimental aircraft Tu-144 ("044") began in 1965, at the same time a second copy was built for static tests. The experimental "044" was originally designed for 98 passengers, later this figure was increased to 120. Accordingly, the estimated take-off weight increased from 130 tons to 150 tons. The experimental machine was built in Moscow in the workshops of the MMZ "Experience", some of the units were manufactured at its branches. In 1967, the assembly of the main elements of the aircraft was completed. At the end of 1967, the experimental "044" was transported to ZHLI and DB, where throughout 1968 finishing work was carried out and the machine was completed with the missing systems and assemblies.

Tests

At the same time, flights of the MiG-21I analogue aircraft (A-144, "21-11"), created on the basis of the MiG-21S fighter, began at the LII airfield. The analogue was created in the Design Bureau of A.I. Mikoyan and had a wing geometrically and aerodynamically similar to the wing of the experimental "044". In total, two 21-11 machines were built, many test pilots flew them, including those who were to test the Tu-144, in particular E.V. Elyan. An analogue aircraft was successfully flown up to a speed of 2500 km/h and the materials of these flights served as the basis for the final adjustment of the Tu-144 wing, and also allowed the test pilots to prepare for the behavior of an aircraft with such a wing.

At the end of 1968, the experimental "044" (tail number 68001) was ready for the first flight. A crew was appointed to the car, consisting of: the commander of the ship - the honored test pilot E.V. Elyan (who later received the Hero of the Soviet Union for the Tu-144); co-pilot - Honored Test Pilot Hero of the Soviet Union M.V. Kozlov; lead test engineer V.N. Benderov and flight engineer Yu.T. Seliverstov. Taking into account the novelty and unusualness of the new car, the Design Bureau made an extraordinary decision: for the first time, it was decided to install ejection seats for the crew on an experimental passenger car. During the month, there were engine races, runs, final ground checks of systems. From the beginning of the third decade of December 1968, "044" was in pre-launch readiness, the car and crew were completely ready for the first flight, during all these ten days there was no weather over the LII airfield and the experimental Tu-144 remained on the ground. Finally, on the last day of the outgoing 1968, 25 seconds after the moment of launch, "044" for the first time broke away from the runway of the LII airfield and quickly gained altitude. The first flight lasted 37 minutes, in flight the car was accompanied by an analogue aircraft "21-11". According to the crew, the car proved to be obedient and "flying". The first flight was attended by A.N. Tupolev, A.A. Tupolev, many heads of OKB departments.

The first flight of the Tu-144 was an event of world significance and an important moment in the history of domestic and world aviation. For the first time, a supersonic passenger aircraft took to the air, and it was an aircraft built in the USSR; the first Concorde would fly only on March 2, 1969. It has been proven in practice that heavy tailless aircraft have citizenship rights in the USSR (before this flight, everything was limited to a large number of heavy tailless aircraft projects).

The second flight (50 min) took place on January 8, 1969, and six months later, on June 5, 1969, the prototype aircraft exceeded supersonic speed for the first time at an altitude of 11000 m, by May 1970 the car was flying at speeds M = 1.25-1.6 at altitudes up to 15,000 m. On May 26, 1970, the Tu-144 for the first time in the history of civil aviation reached a speed of 2,150 km / h (M = 2) at an altitude of 16,300 m. 2000 km / h, at an altitude of 16960 m, a maximum speed of 2430 km / h was reached. By the fall of 1970, the prototype had flown 100 hours.

The aircraft was shown publicly for the first time on May 21, 1970 at the Sheremetyevo airport. During the tests, an experimental machine repeatedly flew outside the USSR, in May-June 1971, "044" took part in the salon at Le Bourget, where she first "met" with the Anglo-French Concorde. Her flight to Bulgaria took only 1 hour: taking off in Moscow at 9 am, he landed in Sofia also at 9 am. Cruising speed at an altitude of 16 km was 2300 km / h. This height was gained at a distance of about 350 km in 18 minutes.

Design

The Tu-144 is a tailless low-wing aircraft. An ogival wing with a downwardly deflected toe has a leading edge sweep angle of 78° in the near-fuselage parts and 55° throughout the rest. The aircraft wing (lengthening 1.74 and narrowing 7, multi-spar design) consists of the main and detachable parts and has a caisson structure with a power-loaded skin in the form of milled large-sized waffle-structure panels made of high-strength aluminum alloys.

The aircraft is controlled using four-section elevons (on each console) and a two-section rudder located on the classic vertical tail. The keel of the aircraft, as well as the wing, of a multi-spar design, is made integral with the tail section of the fuselage. The internal volume of the keel is used as a fuel caisson tank.

The circular fuselage has a cockpit nose fairing that deviates downward at an angle of 12° during takeoff and 17° during landing. The cockpit glazing of the prototype consists of two front and side windows. The nose cone is equipped with four longitudinal elongated side windows, providing forward visibility during its rise and in cruise flight. The fuselage of the prototype was designed to accommodate 100-121 passengers.

The fuselage, consisting of stringers, beams and frames fastened to the skin, is structurally divided into 3 parts: nose, center and tail. In the bow there is a cockpit (with a canopy fitted into the fuselage contours) and a deflectable nose cone, made in the form of a multilayer structure made of fiberglass with honeycomb filler. The central part, in which the passenger compartments are located, together with the bow constitutes a single sealed compartment. The edging of the portholes, entrance, service and emergency doors are made of milled panels. The tail part of the fuselage, being a fuel caisson tank, is sealed. Its tip is a brake parachute container.

Chassis - tricycle. The front strut has twin wheels. In prototypes, the main racks were equipped with 12-wheeled bogies (3 axles) retractable in the wing console. Such a scheme for cleaning the landing gear was due to the fact that, unlike the Concorde, the space under the fuselage was occupied by a package of engines. To accommodate the wheels in the wing had to reduce their diameter and increase the number.

The airframe of the aircraft is designed for a resource of 30,000 hours and is made of aluminum and titanium alloys (mainly in the form of monolithic enlarged structures). Titanium alloys are widely used in the construction of air intakes, engine nacelles and wings.

Equipment. The aircraft is equipped with modern electronic equipment that provides automatic control during takeoff, in flight and landing in difficult meteorological conditions. For the first time on a domestic passenger aircraft, flight and navigation equipment was made using digital computing technology. Thanks to this, the aircraft crew consists of only three people: two pilots and a flight engineer (the flight route is also controlled by onboard automation). The aircraft is controlled by an electro-hydraulic system with irreversible hydraulic boosters. In the channels of pitch, heading and roll, automatic loading of the command control levers is used, functioning depending on the angle of their deviation, as well as the speed and altitude of the flight. In the pitch channel, in addition, an automatic balancing system is used.

All main aircraft systems have multiple redundancy, which significantly increases reliability. In general, the Tu-144 was created in accordance with international airworthiness standards for passenger aircraft.

Power point.

The prototype aircraft used a power plant consisting of four NK-144 turbofan engines designed by N.D. Kuznetsova. The engines were installed in a package under the fuselage, which reduced the possible turning moment when some of them failed. The outlet of the nozzles is located in a plane lying approximately on half of the chord of the elevons. Multi-mode bypass engines with afterburner were supposed to make it possible to operate the Tu-144 both on medium (subsonic flight) and long-range (supersonic) routes.

The first prototype aircraft had two external engines equipped with thrust reversers. Due to the large power supply, wing mechanization, braking devices and thrust reverser, the operation of the Tu-144 is possible at all class 1 airfields with concrete runways 3000 m long, designed to receive modern subsonic heavy jet aircraft. However, on the aircraft demonstrated in 1971, the thrust reverser was replaced by a drag parachute. The engines are equipped with individual adjustable rectangular air intakes. The position of the air intakes relative to the fuselage corresponds to the position of the oblique shock waves under the wing when flying at cruising speed.

Fuel is placed in caisson wing tanks (about 70,000 kg in experimental aircraft). The aircraft has balance tanks, which are located in the rear of the fuselage and wing bulges and are designed to change the position of the center of gravity of the aircraft during the transition from subsonic flight speed to supersonic.

The explosion safety of fuel tanks is ensured by double nitriding of the fuel.

State

The 044 was powered by experimental NK-144 engines with a specific fuel consumption in supersonic cruising mode of 2.23 kg / kgf hour, with such specific costs in tests, the Tu-144 managed to reach a supersonic flight range of 2920 km, which was significantly less than the required range . In addition, during the test, they encountered some design flaws: during flights, increased vibration and heating of the rear fuselage from the quad engine package were observed, even titanium structures did not help out. Having completed the test flight program "044" (about 150 flights in total), it remained in one prototype. Nothing more was required of her; she fulfilled her task of proving the technical feasibility of creating a supersonic passenger aircraft in the USSR. It was necessary to move further, improving the design of the aircraft and engines.

Tu - 144, the world's first supersonic aircraft

TU-144 is the world's first supersonic aircraft that took to the air. In total, there are 2 supersonic passenger aircraft in the history of world aviation: TU-144 and Concorde. Both aircraft are currently unused and out of production.

The prototype first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two months before the first flight of the Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the sound barrier on June 5, 1969, and on July 15, 1969 became the first commercial vehicle to exceed Mach 2.

The first flight of the TU-144 was made on December 31, 1968, 2 months earlier than the first flight of the Concorde. On June 5, 1969, the TU-144 broke the sound barrier, and on July 15, 1969, it became the first passenger and commercial aircraft in the world to exceed the M2 speed.

TU-144 and Concorde are outwardly similar, which became the subject of speculation and alleged industrial espionage of the USSR. However, there is no confirmation of this. There are significant differences, so the main thing is the location of the engines. In the TU-144 they are located in 2 with a small distance between the pairs of engines, in the Concorde they are spaced apart - almost in the middle of the wing, there are other design features.

But the beginning of failures and possibly the reason for the termination of the development of the project was a disaster in 1973 at the air show in La Bourget. Video footage of the crash has been preserved. There are a number of versions, official, not official, however, the video shows that by and large the human factor became a disaster. The pilot, for show, undertook such a maneuver that the load on the aircraft became critical and the structure simply could not withstand the overload.

In May 1978, a prototype TU-144D crashed; this aircraft, compared to the initial modification, had a longer flight range, lower fuel consumption and other changes that were made to reduce the cost of operating the aircraft.

The TU-144 aircraft was operated on the route Moscow - Alma-Ata, due to the fact that the cost of tickets was 30% higher than for other aircraft, the flight was not loaded and economically unprofitable. The aircraft has successfully completed 58 passenger flights in its history.

After that, the operation of the aircraft was discontinued.

If we compare the TU-144 with the Concorde, they are very similar in appearance, the differences were that the Concorde was superior to the TU-144 in terms of economy, electronics, lower possible landing speed (329 km / h for the TU-144 and 300 km / h hour at Concord). The superiority of the Tu-144 over the Concorde was expressed in better aerodynamics.

In total, 16 active aircraft and 1 unfinished aircraft were produced in history.

It should be noted that initially the NK-144 turbojet engines were used on the TU-144, the disadvantage of these engines was that in order to achieve supersonic speed, it was necessary to turn on the afterburner, naturally, this led to enormous fuel consumption.

Tu-144D aircraft have already used RD-36-51A engines, these are the world's first gas turbine engines that made it possible to achieve supersonic speeds without the use of afterburner.

The use of this engine reduced fuel consumption by almost 2 times.

The passenger cabin of the aircraft.

The problem of the operation of the aircraft was constant minor breakdowns, but they required study, that is, the cost of time, to make a decision whether to let the aircraft fly or not.

A very significant drawback was the huge noise in the cabin. The noise came from the engines and from the air conditioning system. The fact is that at supersonic speeds, the aircraft skin had to be cooled from overheating, the cooling system created significant noise. So in practice, passengers sitting next to each other heard each other, only if they spoke in a shout, in the back of the aircraft the noise was unbearable.

Problems of supersonic passenger aviation.

Why are there currently no supersonic passenger aircraft?

First of all, because of the high cost of operating these types of aircraft. In addition to the fact that at a higher, and even more so supersonic speed, fuel consumption is much higher than at presonic speeds, there are still problems with the aircraft body.

At supersonic speeds, the body of the aircraft must be constantly cooled in order to avoid overheating, deformation and destruction. You can, of course, use titanium alloys, but this will automatically increase the cost of the aircraft and the cost of its manufacture. At the moment, at the price of today's fuel, the commercial operation of supersonic passenger aircraft is simply not efficient.

Technical characteristics of the TU-144 aircraft:

Crew: 3 people

Passenger capacity: 120–140 passengers

Length: 65.50 m

Wingspan: 28.80 m

Height: 10.50 m

Wing area: 438.0 m²

Empty weight: 85,000 kg

Takeoff weight: 120,000 kg

Maximum takeoff weight: 180,000 kg

Speed: M2.0 (2.142 km/h)

Practical ceiling: 18,000 m

Thrust-to-weight ratio: 0.44

Tu-144 became the world's first supersonic passenger liner. It took off before the Anglo-French Concorde, it opened a new era in world civil aviation. The creation of the Tu-144 brought the domestic aviation industry to the most advanced positions.
A huge technological leap was also made by related industries. The Tu-144 became, not without reason, a source of pride for the Soviet people.

Successes in the development of combat jet aviation gave rise to the idea of ​​​​creating a supersonic passenger airliner. Talk about such an aircraft began to circulate in Europe and America, and in order to keep up with Western countries, and it is better to get ahead of them, it was decided to start designing such an aircraft in our country. July 16, 1963 issued a decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 798-271 "On the creation of the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev SPS Tu-144 with four jet engines and on the construction of a batch of such aircraft." Tupolev's son was appointed lead designer for the aircraft. The development of the engine was entrusted to the Design Bureau of N.D. Kuznetsov.


Initially, it was supposed to create a passenger version of the Tu-135 missile carrier, the project of which at that time was being developed in the Tupolev Design Bureau. However, after the calculations, the designers came to the conclusion that significant alterations in the design would be required and the aircraft from scratch would be much more profitable. While working on the project, the developers had to face a number of complex technical problems: aerodynamics, kinetic heating, elastic and thermal deformations of the structure, new lubricants and sealants, new life support systems for passengers and crew. Particularly much effort was required to develop the design and aerodynamics of the wing (200 variants were studied in the wind tunnel). The use of titanium alloys in the design required the creation of new machine tools and welding machines. These problems, together with the Design Bureau of A.N. Tupolev, were solved by specialists from TsAGI, CIAM, SibNIA and other organizations. Since 1965, regular consultations have been held with the designers of the French company Aerospasial, which developed the Concorde. During the preparation of working drawings, more than a thousand specialists were seconded from the Design Bureau of O.K. Antonov and S.V. Ilyushin.


When designing the aircraft, two MiG-21I analogues were used as a working model (now one of them is stored in the Air Force Museum in Monino). The MiG fuselage was shortened by 0.75 m. An ogive-shaped wing was installed on it, which is a reduced copy of the Tu-144 wing. In 1967, an analogue aircraft successfully flew up to a speed of 2500 km / m. The test results formed the basis for the final calculation of the wing. Future Tu-144 pilots also trained on the MiG-21I. The MiG-25, Su-9 and Tu-22 were also involved in test flights.
By the summer of 1965, the most important design and layout decisions for the aircraft had been made. In July, A.N. Tupolev presented to the MGA a preliminary design of the Tu-144. In the same year, a model aircraft with a wingspan of about 2 m was exhibited at the air show in Le Bourget. On June 22, 1966, a full-size model of the aircraft was approved. In parallel with the design in the experimental production of the Design Bureau in Zhukovsky, two prototypes were being manufactured (flight and for static tests). The Voronezh and Kuibyshev aircraft factories also participated in their manufacture. The construction of the first prototype was completed on October 9, 1968. On December 31, the crew, led by test pilot Yelyan, took him into the air for the first time. On June 5, 1969, the prototype reached the speed of sound, and on June 26, 1970, it doubled it. For testing the Tu-144 pilot Yelyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.


Tu-144 was first shown at the aviation festival at Sheremetyevo Airport on May 21, 1970. In the summer of 1971, the pilot operation of the prototype began at Aeroflot. Flights were made from Moscow to Prague, Berlin, Warsaw, Sofia. In 1972, the Tu-144 was demonstrated at the air shows in Hannover and Budapest.


June 3, 1973 Tu-144 No. 77102 crashed during a demonstration flight at the air show in Le Bourget. All six crew members (Hero of the Soviet Union, Honored Test Pilot M. V. Kozlov, test pilot V. M. Molchanov, navigator G. N. Bazhenov, Deputy Chief Designer Engineer Major General V. N. Benderov, Lead Engineer B A. Pervukhin and flight engineer A. I. Dralin) died. The cause of the disaster was too abrupt a maneuver that the crew had to make in order to avoid a collision with the unexpectedly appeared French Mirage. Subsequently, the Mirage pilot, who explained that he only wanted to photograph the Tu-144, was acquitted by a French court. However, given the fact that the Tu-144 was a direct competitor of the Concorde, both the actions of the French pilot and the acquittal of the court give reason to believe that the Tu-144 crash was the result of deliberate actions by the French side.


Simultaneously with flight tests, research was carried out on 80 ground stands, on which all the most important design and layout solutions were worked out. With the help of these stands, for the first time in the USSR, an integrated system for assessing failures was developed, taking into account their consequences. State tests continued until May 15, 1977. On October 29, the aircraft received a certificate of airworthiness.


The Tu-144 is an all-metal low-wing aircraft made according to the “tailless” scheme. The fuselage is semi-monocoque with a smooth working skin, reinforced with extruded profile stringers and a set of frames. The aircraft landing gear is tricycle with a nose strut. Four bypass turbojet engines NK-144A designed by OKB N.D. Kuznetsov (on the Tu-144D - non-afterburning RD-36-51A designed by OKB-36 P.A. Kolesov) are placed under the wing close to each other. Each engine has a separate air intake. The air intakes are grouped in pairs. The nose landing gear is retracted into the space between the air intakes in the forward part of the fuselage. The wing of the aircraft has a variable sweep angle (76° at the root and 57° at the ends of the wing). The wing skin is made of solid aluminum alloy plates. Elevons made of titanium alloys are located along the entire trailing edge. Elevons and rudders are deflected by irreversible boosters. To improve visibility during takeoff and landing, the nose of the fuselage is made descending. The main volume of fuel is located in 18 wing tanks. A balancing tank is installed in the rear of the fuselage. Fuel is pumped into it in flight to shift the center of mass during the transition from subsonic to supersonic speed. An on-board computer is used to control the aircraft. Landing approach can be carried out automatically at any time of the day and in any weather. For the first time in the USSR, the Tu-144 used an automatic system for monitoring the technical condition of on-board systems, which makes it possible to reduce the labor intensity of maintenance.


The first serial Tu-144 was assembled in the spring of 1971 in Zhukovsky. In 1972, production began at the Voronezh Aviation Plant. A total of 16 aircraft were built. Another one was left unfinished. Production aircraft differed from the prototype in the length of the fuselage increased by 5.7 m, a slightly modified wing shape and the presence of retractable front wings. The number of seats for passengers increased from 120 to 140. The first flight of the serial aircraft took place on September 20, 1972 on the route Moscow - Tashkent - Moscow. In March 1975, a high-speed airline Moscow - Alma-Ata was opened (mail and cargo were transported), and on October 20, 1977, the first flight with passengers was performed.
However, the Tu-144 also had enemies. Fearing responsibility, many MGA officials in every possible way hampered the process of mastering the aircraft by Aeroflot. An accident with an experimental Tu-144D on May 23, 1978 served as a formal pretext for stopping the operation of the Tu-144 with NK-144 engines on passenger lines, although from the very beginning it was clear that this accident occurred precisely because of the design features of the Tu-144D modification. In 1979, a number of cargo flights to Khabarovsk were carried out on Tu-144D aircraft. Later, in 1981-1982, decisions were made to resume passenger traffic, but they remained on paper.


Until the mid-90s, Tu-144 aircraft were used to conduct various tests, as well as to study the ozone layer of the Earth's atmosphere, solar eclipses, and focused sonic boom. Cosmonauts trained under the Buran program trained on the Tu-144. In July 1983, the crew of test pilot S.T.Agapov on the Tu-144D set 13 world aviation records, which have not been beaten to this day. The experience gained during the creation of the Tu-144 was used in the development of heavy supersonic aircraft Tu-22M and Tu-160.
At the request of the Ministry of Science and by decision of the MAP, several aircraft were installed as exhibits on the territory of the Air Force Museum in Monino, the Civil Aviation Museum in Ulyanovsk, aircraft factories in Voronezh, Kazan and Samara. One aircraft was sold to a private museum of technology in Sinheim (Germany).

The Tu-144, which was named the Charger by NATO codification, is a supersonic Soviet passenger aircraft developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau.

Created in the 1960s, it was the first supersonic airliner to be operated by airlines for commercial air travel.

History of Tu-144

The first flight of an experimental Tu-144 aircraft was performed on 12/31/1968. During the creation, work was carried out simultaneously in two directions. The first involved the creation of a non-afterburning economical turbojet engine of the RD-36-51 type, the second was aimed at improving the aerodynamic characteristics of the Tu-144.

As a result, they planned to get the job done to achieve supersonic flight. In 1969, by decision of the USSR Council of Ministers Commission, the option of completing the aircraft with the RD-36-51 power plant was adopted.

In parallel, the MGA organization decides to build six Tu-144s with more economical NK-144A engines. Modernization with new engines met the requirements for the range of supersonic flight of the first stage (4-4.5 thousand km), it was planned to equip production models with RD-36-51 engines.

The first pre-production modernized Tu-144 aircraft began to be assembled in 1968 at the MMZ "Experience". According to the calculated data, the NK-144 engines could provide a supersonic flight range of 3275 km, and NK-144A - 3500 km.

To improve the aerodynamic characteristics of the machine, the shape of the wing was changed. The degree of sweep was changed: along the leading edge it was 76 °, and along the base - 57 °. In contrast to the "044", the wing area was increased, an intense conical twist of the final parts of the wing was introduced. But the main thing that improved aerodynamics was the change in the central part of the wing, which provided self-balancing in cruising speeds. The changes affected the length of the fuselage, which could accommodate up to 150 passengers. The improvement of aerodynamic data was facilitated by the processing of the shape of the forward fuselage. The twin engines, together with the engine nacelles, were moved apart, thereby freeing up space in the lower part of the fuselage. This arrangement led to changes in the chassis system: the main landing gear began to be placed under the engine nacelles, the retraction took place inside between the air channels of the engines.

As a result of design improvements, an increase in the fuel supply and payload, the take-off weight of the aircraft increased to 190 tons (in the 044 project, this figure was 150 tons).

The first pre-production copy of the Tu-144 was released at the beginning of 1971, and the first flight on it took place on 06/01/1971. According to the program of factory tests, 231 sorties were carried out, 55 flight hours were completed in supersonic mode.

On September 20, 1972, the aircraft performed a flight on the route Moscow - Tashkent, which was completed in 1 hour 50 minutes. During the flight, the cruising speed of the car reached 2500 km / h.

Serial production of the Tu-144 airliner was launched at the Voronezh Aviation Plant.

The production model, which was equipped with NK-144A engines, was first flown on 03/20/1972. Unlike the pre-production machine, the wing area was added somewhat, which led to an increase in take-off weight to 195 tons.

06/3/1973 the first production aircraft crashed in front of 350 thousand spectators. The crew wanted to repeat the feat of the Concorde, which had performed the "fighter" maneuver the day before - to fly over the runway and take off again. However, this was not possible. Starting from an altitude of 1200 m, the aircraft suddenly began to dive and, only reaching 120 m above the ground, began to slowly rise. The overload greatly exceeded the permissible level, as a result of which the left wing fell off first, and then the tail compartment. The structure of the aircraft was completely destroyed. The crash happened near the small French town of Goussainville. As a result of the disaster, the entire crew of the liner and 7 local residents died, 28 people were injured.

The first passenger flight with the participation of the Tu-144 took place on 10/1/1977. Until May 1978, the aircraft carried out 55 passenger and 47 cargo flights.

In total, 17 copies of the Tu-144 supersonic airliners were produced, 14 of which were in Voronezh. Equipment for passenger compartments was ordered in the GDR. At the present time, two Tu-144 aircraft are stored in the aviation museums of Monino and Ulyanovsk.

Design

Tu-144 is an all-metal low-wing aircraft, which was made according to the "tailless" scheme. The fuselage of the aircraft is made like a semi-monocoque and has a smooth working skin with stringers and a set of frames. The Tu-144 chassis is tricycle, there is a nose strut.

The power plant includes four NK-144A turbojet engines, in the Tu-144D modification - non-afterburning RD-36-51A. Each of the motors has its own air intake. The location of the air intakes is in pairs. The nose landing gear retracts into the space of the forward part of the fuselage between the air intakes.

Variable sweep aircraft wing. The wing skin is made of aluminum alloy sheets. Titanium elevons are placed on the trailing edge. They, together with the rudders, deflect due to irreversible boosters. The cockpit is made movable like a "duck" to provide a better view during takeoff and landing of the aircraft.

Most of the fuel is in 18 wing tanks. A balancing tank was placed in the rear of the fuselage. It receives fuel at the stage of transition from subsonic speed to supersonic. The landing could be carried out at any time of the day and in any weather conditions. A new technical solution was the debut application in the history of Soviet aircraft construction on this aircraft of an automated system for monitoring the performance of on-board systems. This, in turn, reduced the time and effort involved in machine maintenance.

Tu-144 aircraft were used not only as liners. They were used during research on solar eclipses, the ozone layer, and focused sonic boom. These aircraft became training centers for cosmonauts who trained under the Buran program. In 1983, test pilot S.T. Agapov set thirteen world aviation records on the Tu-144D, which have not been broken to this day.

Tu-144 characteristics:

aircraft length without PVD - 64.45 m;

wingspan - 28.8 m;

aircraft height - 12.5 m;

wing area with an influx - 506.35 m2;

maximum takeoff weight - 207000 kg;

the mass of an empty equipped aircraft for the variant for 150 passengers - 99200 kg;

cruising supersonic flight speed - 2120 km / h;

practical flight range, with payload:

7 tons (70 pass.) - 6200 km;

11-13 tons (110-130 passengers) - 5500-5700 km;

15 tons (150 pass.) - 5330 km.

Tu-144 video