Tupolev Tu-144 Supersonic airliner 1/72 ModelSvit 7203

Tupolev Tu-144 Supersonic airliner
1/72  fighter aircraft
ModelSvit 7203

Manufacturer: ModelSvit (Ukraine)
Scale: 1/72
Material: Plastic
Paint: Unpainted, Unassembled, Kit do not contain paints and glue.
Condition: New in Box

The Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO name: "Charger'") was the first commercialsupersonic transport aircraft (SST). It was one of only two SSTs to enter commercial service, the other being the Anglo-French Concorde. The design, publicly unveiled in January 1962, was constructed in the Soviet Union under the direction of the Tupolev design bureau, headed by Alexei Tupolev. Tu-144 crashed in 1973 at the Paris Air Show, delaying its further development. The aircraft was introduced into passenger service on 1 November 1977, almost two years after Concorde. In May 1978, another Tu-144 (an improved version, named Tu-144D) crashed in a test flight while being delivered, and the passenger fleet was permanently grounded after only 55 scheduled flights. The aircraft remained in use as a cargo plane until 1983, by which point a total of 102 commercial flights had been completed. The Tu-144 was later used by the Soviet space programme to train pilots of the Buranspacecraft, and by NASA for supersonic research.The Soviet government published the concept of the Tu-144 in an article in the January 1962 issue of the magazine Technology of Air Transport. The air ministry started development of the Tu-144 on 26 July 1963, 10 days after the design was approved by the Council of Ministers. The plan called for five flying prototypes to be built in four years, with the first aircraft to be ready in 1966.

Despite the close similarity in appearance of the Tu-144 to the Anglo-French supersonic aircraft, there were significant differences in the control, navigation and engine systems. The Tu-144 lagged behind Concorde in areas such as braking and engine control. Concorde utilized an electronic engine control package fromLucas, Tupolev was not permitted to purchase it for the Tu-144 as it could also be used on military aircraft. Concorde's designers used airliner fuel as coolant for the cabin air conditioning and for the hydraulic system (see Concorde for details). Tupolev installed additional equipment on the Tu-144 to accomplish this, increasing the weight of the airliner.Although studies showed that turbojet engines are highly desirable for supersonic airliners, none were available. The Tu-144 prototype was therefore originally fitted with the inefficient Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofan engines and consequently suffered from higher nacelle drag. While this permitted early test flights, it did not permit cruising at Mach 2 without afterburner. A maximum cruising speed of 2,430 km/h (1,510 mph; 1,310 kn) (Mach 2.29) was obtained with the afterburner.The development of the Tu-144 is closely related to industrial espionage against the French company Aérospatiale, which was (along with the British Aircraft Corporation) developing Concorde. Sergei Pavlov, officially acting as Aeroflot's representative in Paris, was arrested in 1965 and was in possession of detailed plans of the braking system, landing gear and the airframe of Concorde. Another agent named Sergei Fabiew, arrested in 1977, was believed to have obtained the entire plans of Concorde prototype in the mid-1960s. However, these were just early development versions and would not have permitted the USSR engineers to come up with their own aircraft, but could have served as an indication of the work of Concorde design team. An espionage theory involved the Anglo/French Concorde team, who knew that the Soviets were planning to steal the plans, and therefore put into circulation a set of dummy blueprints with deliberate design flaws.

Tu-144
Tu-144 prototype inflight on 1 February 1969
Role	Supersonic airliner
Manufacturer	Tupolev OKB