Slashdot Mirror

That would be the TU-144, dubbed 'Concordski' due to its amazing resemblance to Concorde. Not coincidental, as they stole early Concorde plans! However the Russians could never get the wing right, so it had to have those ridiculous rabbit ears to avoid stalls at low speed. The Paris Air Show crash which basically did for this plane commercially is believed to have been due to the pilot taking evasive action to avoid a French military jet and overstressing the airframe. Neat site about it here. Good site about Concorde here too.

The tricky bit, I think, was to get a shape that was both slippery enough(?) at supersonic speeds and also capable of generating enough lift at low speed to get it off the ground.

The interviewee said that they pretty much just lucked out rather than solving some particular set of mathematical equations.

Apparently the Tupolev TU-144 was essentially just a copy of the Concorde but relied on retractible canard wings to give it the lift at take-off, as they couldn't figure out how to get the wing shape right (Good picture here).

It looks like a successor to the world's only supersonic passenger jet, Concorde (built jointly by the British and French in the 1960s) is still some way off.
Surely you are aware of Tu-144? It wasn't too successful, but it was supersonic and intended to carry passengers.

You seem to be forgetting the Tupolev TU-144, dubbed Concordski in the west due to its uncanny resemblence to Concorde. Although faster than Corcorde, its crash at the Paris Air Show effectively put an end to its challenge to Concorde in the commercial marketplace. Nonetheless, it was used as a passenger carrying jet in the Soviet Union in 1977 and early 1978 until another crash put and end to its career. Concorde is, therefore, the only currently operating supersonic passenger jet.

So does the mighty USA Army, but we don't complain about that!

IMO, Concorde demonstrates the superiority of the European and Japanese practices of 'corporate welfare'. We need to get more of this in the USA, or else these more socialist countries will run rings around us technology-wise.

When the profit motive is the only force in the market, the inevitable result is stagnation and monopoly. The Socialist governments of France and the United Kingdom showed that two Socialist countries could achieve what even the greatest nation on earth could not: Supersonic passenger aircraft.

It is interesting to note that the only other supersonic airliner was the Tupolev TU-144 which came from that other Socialist utopia the USSR.

I am not saying the USA should become socialist, but it should recognize that to achive true greatness and kick-ass status, it needs to develop a supersonic airliner of its own, otherwise people will still look to Britain and France as the most advanced nations.

Come on, you can't tell me you don't feel a tinge of national humiliation every time you see the sleek sexy lines of the Concorde parked at JFK airport ?

IIRC, the Tupolev-144 was largely a carbon copy of Concorde, at least in it's later incarnation. The first prototype (that flew before Concorde) was configured differently. It carried more passengers than Concorde, but was a lot less fuel efficient (It was heavier, and needed more power). Details on the amount of spying that took place can be found here. It seems that Soviet Russia certainly did not have her eye solely on the USA.

Of course, popular theory would suggest the West would never have stooped to spying back, until it was discovered that the famous crash at Le Bourget, which sank the Tupolev's reputation was caused by maneouvres to evade a French Mirage photo-reconaissance jet ;-)

There was a comparitively recent NASA experiment on supersonic transport, using the Tupolev as a basis.

This could be considered OT, but it shows exactly how much those on both sides of the Iron Curtain would throw at a project to keep them one step ahead (Not that I would relish a return to those dark old days).

If I recall correctly the History Channel show I saw on the Tu-144, there is no proof that its failure had any relationship to unstable design. To this day a number of engineers from around the world maintain to this day that its design (though stolen from the Anglo-French group) was improved upon to the point that it was superior to Concorde. The cause of the accident seems to be disputed, but it seems to be a tossup between pilot error (the pilot putting the plane in a position no commercial airliner would ever hold up to [the 144 made it further in than the rest would've]) or the interference of a mirage fighter put in the air by France. Tu-144s are still flown today, admittedly not widely (but neither are Concordes) in Russia, with a flawless safety record.

More info on the Tu-144 "Konkordsky":
The 144LL Initiative
More 144LL
Tu 144 specs
A guide to Russian Airplanes