Guys, just a quick correction. The Tu-144 never had winglets. It had retractable canards, which are the wing-like surfaces right behind the cockpit. And they were clearly already added before the 1973 Paris air show since they are clearly visible in the footage. Winglets are the things that look like shark fins at the tip of the wings, clearly seen in any modern airliner, and became something more common in aeronautical designs from the early 90's onwards, but existed way before then.
Yeah, that really irked me. I also didn't understand his point about the "horizontal stabiliser". Idk if he was referring to the canards or the main delta wing.
The sonic boom along with loud engines that needed to be in afterburner to maintain supersonic speeds & relatively short range which that is why the Moscow to Almaty route was chose.
Indeed, just look at, in particular the ogival shaped wing of Concorde, especially the definitive production version, compared to the rather crude delta of the TU-144. A lot of development went into the ogival wing for a reason. Then I am biased, being in the BA Concorde Engineering department for 7 years!
Have you visited the german sinsheim museum. There they have a Concorde and tu144 side by side. The Tu144 is certainly bulkier and had more room inside. But the wing is much cruder. The Concorde’s curves look like they were sandpapered out of marble by Michelangelo himself. No wonder Concorde managed supersonic supercruise without afterburners, and the tupolev couldnt. Maybe they didnt have the engine inlet slats as well controlled as well. I remember reading, the Concorde required a big computer to manage the engine inlet airspeed, but that it made the engines much much more eficient at supercruise speeds. I still dream of some billionaire aircraft fan to build a modern updated Concorde. Like the same fuselage, just modern computers and engines, making for an even more efficient aircraft.
@@mjfan653 Each A.I.C.U. (Air Intake Control Unit) on Concorde was about the size of a carton on cigarettes. Made by the Guided Weapon beach of the British Aircraft Corporation. Concorde also pioneered electronic engine controls, a hybrid (with manual back up) fly by wire system - a step to full FBW on the Airbus A320, carbon brakes plus of course the bi national aspect of the project, a first at the time.
For anyone who is interested: The pair, concorde/tu144. is open for viewing in the Tecknik museum in Sinsheim, Germany. For any person interested in engineering, highly recommend visiting when nearby due to also some other rares and unique pieces, basically anything that has a remarkable story with a combustion engine is visible.
I travelled over 2000 kilometers to see them…. Twice. They are both magnificent aircraft. Had the soviets worked a bit more on the tu144 it could have been even better than Concorde. It was bigger and roomier. But took to much fuel, had they worked on making the airframe sleaker and more eficient, they could have had a winner. And it is super interesting to compare the two, as they are next to each other, I recommend supersonics fans take two days at the museum, and one of those mainly reserved for comparing the two, just taking in the unique airframes and their features. And even if you dont care too much about the concordes, sinsheim deserves two day, as the museum is super big and interesting.
@@mjfan653 Nonsense. The TU 144 could not achieve ANY design parameter and could never do so. What you mean is "If they had a completely different design of wings and airframe and better engines then it would have been better than Concorde" Analyse what you said and then admit you are writing nonsense.
I remember the Boing 2707 project (the Supersonic Transport or SST) the USA was going to outdo both the Anglo French and Soviet Aircraft. Due to major cost overruns and technical issues the project was cancelled. The Seattle NBA team "The Supersonics" were named in anticipation of the 2707 being produced there.
Sir George Edwards CEO of BAC was asked about the 'US SST' he said "It is supposed to be capable of Mach 3, of which we have just minutes of experience, carry 250 passengers, largest proposed carrier, with Variable Geometry Wings, no examples in service currently, using engines which don't exist yet and weigh a Million Pounds. It ain't going to happen!, "
@@uingaeoc3905 I mean out of of all the countries out there the USA by that point had far ore experience at mach 3 than anyone else with the SR-71 family and Valkyrie bomber.
@@MrGeforcerFX Not at that point - the XB70 flew for just over an hour and a half at Mach3 between 1964 to 1969 and SR71 from flight trials in 1966. Concorde was being developed from extensive and in service Mach 2 planes from the late 1950s and first flew in 1969 - it was on a different scale to those predecessors, 100 passengers sustained for 3,000 miles. The Soviets took the same view. Any US alternative to it should have adopted those parameters and not 'going for broke', so it didn't and couldn't happen.
To David and the entire Cold War crew, it would mean a lot to me if you made these following videos: - Argentina during the rule of Juan Peron - Thailand's on-and-off military governments and lese-majeste laws - Gastarbeiters (foreign migrant workers) in both West and East Germany - The Paris massacre of 1961 (related to the Algerian War) - Two Korean organisations in Japan (the pro-Pyongyang Chongryon and the pro-Seoul Mindan) - Bantustans (black homelands) in Apartheid-era South Africa - The history of Mongolia as a communist state during the Cold War - The history of Macau during the Cold War and how it contrasts with Hong Kong's Cold War history Thank you very much and please accept my requests.
I'd love to see the logistics of the Berlin corridors. (Other than during the Berlin airlift.) - Could the Soviets stop an inspect the contents? - Did the Soviets have any controls or guards at either end to regulate traffic? - How were they guarded to prevent people from entering or leaving them while they crossed East German territory? - Were there any attempts to use them to inject spies from either side? - Were they ever used as an escape attempt by East Germans?
it would mean a lot to David S and the entire Cold War Crew, if you would purchase their monthly channel membership. That way, you can make their requests and show, that you pay in supportingtheir content. I know everyone can't afford it, heck I barely can but the bottom tier, is better than nothing. Nothing is for free, my friend.
12:04 This is too cool! I’ve always wondered about some of what you’re explaining. But as you are relaying the story, I’ve bookmarked I couldn’t help, but think that it says a lot about the excitement and national pride of the pilots to try to show off the superiority of their plane by deliberately using it in a manner other than intended.
We saw the Concorde on the runway at Nairobi when we were flying from Johannesburg to Luxembourg on a Lux Air 707 in,i think,1983.We must have landed in Kenya to refueling.
Been wondering if this Tu 144 was going to get a video from The Cold War . Glad to see this! I was fascinated as a young person by the differences between this plane and the Concord. Easy to see where the Soviets "cut corners" and tried keeping supersonic transports in their service. Thank you for this The Cold War channel !!
The Soviet aircraft was always going to be bigger, that’s a Soviet trope when competing with the West, see Khrushchev’s Tu-104 that was 20 feet higher on the hardstand than Western Airliners making it difficult for him to get out when first arriving in the US. Concorde has a unique Sigmoidal-wing shape, which had taken 1,000s of hours of wind-tunnel work to perfect and gave good lift across the necessary slow speed manoeuvres of take-off and landing and achieve Mach 2 in flight. The Tu-144’s more conventional idea of a double stepped Delta-wing is a compromise of two Delta-wing shapes, one optimised for low speed and one to achieve supersonic speed. There wasn’t really a military equivalent to copy here as most Jet bombers used rocket assisted take-off and landed on extended runways at that time. The canards (what you call winglets here) were necessary because in test flying the landing speed was so high it would require a longer runway and these help manoeuvre the attitude of the wings on landing & manage the stall as they bled off speed. As a result of that rather brutally compromised wing shape, controlling the aircraft in manoeuvre at close to stall speeds was more difficult (dangerous), as its wing shape doesn’t provide an even lift across attitudes and speed range. This is why it was so much easier to push the Concordski beyond its limits of control leading to the Paris crash. This Soviet legacy of “first to crash” is why it only saw use within the Soviet Union and never became an international competitor. Like the failed Soviet Moon program, it was conceived as a response to a Western program and not like the original Soviet plan to conquer Low Earth Orbit which was very successful.
Soviet aircraft weren't bigger as a means of compensation, they were bigger because the Soviet Union, whilst having excellent engineers, didn't have as many advancements in miniaturization, electronics and materials sciences as the West did. The Tu104 was so tall because it was merely a Tu116 with the wings dropped down the fuselage for a more traditional passenger cabin configuration, necessitating taller landing gear.
No you’re totally misunderstanding what makes an aircraft supersonic. Achieving it in a dive absolutely does not count. Thats like pushing your average family car off a high cliff then claiming it can achieve 200 mph.
I always love the contrast in tech, with the Concord and the TU-144…not to mention the Space Shuttle and Buran. I didn’t know NASA actually used these planes in experiments!
In retrospect, the west should have announced research into a transmogrifier, a time-machine, a point-to point transporter and a warp-drive. The Soviets might have actually come up with at least one of them...................
It’s was the Tu-144D (a later production variant) that used the RD-51-36 engines not the prototype. The prototype would have used the Kuznetsov NK-144 Turbofan with afterburners. The Tu-144S used the same engines and was the main version that saw service first carrying passengers and then freight after passenger services ceased in 1978.
One was designed to be a commercially viable supersonic airplane while the other was designed to be the first commercial airplane to reach supersonic speeds for the bragging rights. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Soviets built the airplane first and then tried to find a use for it.
As for her legacy, there was a program by Tupolev running till the end of the USSR to build a newer and improved version, Tu-244. And in the 2000s they revealed a concept for a Business-Concordsky, Tu-444, but that went nowhere.
The problems with the Tu-144 stemmed from it being the product of industrial espionage. Whilst they had the design Tupolev didn't understand what they had and they didn't have the production engineering package. This meant they had to re-engineer many of the parts and systems to match what the USSR could produce. As we see in many areas Soviet, and now Russian, raw figures meant little, they largely amounted to spurious claims or absolute maximums compared to Aérospatiale/BAC's more conservative figures that came with a considerable safety margin.
to copy an aircraft you need to copy it piece by piece to maintain the static aerodynamic stability that an aircraft needs to remain controllable without fly by wire systems not to mention center of gravity and center of pressure concerns. See the TU-4 for an actual copy of an aircraft. I agree that the systems are eerily similar on the concorde and TU-144 are very similar but it lacks certain very critical features like a structural system to arrest and limit the propagation of cracks that the concorde had which probably led up to the TU-144 breaking up in flight in the paris air show. Western aviation had developed that technology after the mid-flight explosions and breakups of the de havilland comet in the pioneering days of jet aviation. The crack arresting feature is called a tear strap and it's not high tech at all and doesn't require any advanced materials engineering it would be strange of the soviets to not use that feature in their design since they did discover cracking issues with the fuselage in testing. Maybe they got some peeks into the design concepts and had their own ways of implementing those but I don't think it goes any farther than that. It has a delta wing which was well known to the soviets since they made the MiG-21 Fishbed, variable engine inlets that was also technology developed for supersonic flight in military jets including the Fishbed. The Concorde used fuel to cool more systems than the TU-144 did and I'd think the soviets would use the same designs they did if they had the plans, since it's a simple and effective way to cool and heat things as needed. Using fuel to cool hydraulics or oil is also not a novel concept but as far as I know using it for air conditioning was a novel one which the Concorde did and the TU-144 didn't. Soviet aviation being focused on military projects led to it not being very safety or design focused since their design philiosophy was relatively cheap production, short lifespan and pilots which were basically conscripts compared to western pilots and the planes were designed to reflect that. They were easy to fly with lots of automation (See interviews of RAF pilots that got to fly the SU-27 on aircrew interview), poor attention to detail and longevity like the lack of airframe refinements like countersunk rivets, comparatively poor cockpit layouts and engines that had hideosly low time before overhaul or replacement compared to western aircraft could list more but I think it gets the point across. If they had an airframe or powerplant failiure the pilot ejects and hopefully doesn't break his spine and the aircraft is just the cost of doing business. But that line of thinking and design does not go well when you're risking 150 civilians plus crew compared to one military pilot that signed up and accepted the risk of life altering injury at best and death in worst case if something goes wrong. I think it was a poorly thought design that was an ego project for the soviets and not much more since it was poorly designed and tested and had limited use case calling it a contemporary of the concorde is almost insulting to the english and french engineers when you consider how much better the concorde is in almost every aspect.
The Tu144 was not the first passenger airliner to reach super sonic speed, but it was the first to be intended to. During the flight tests of the DC8 they tested the overspeed with a 20% over run. So they stuck it in a shallow dive and made it go super sonic, because safety. It survived
On the TU-144 crash in June 1973 at Le Bourget: On the last day of the show the flagship demonstration consisted in the maneuverability in low speed of approach and landing of the TU-144 thanks to the have much larger surface wing,flaps of greater dimension and to the wing "canard retractable in the nose of the apparatus allowed the TU-144 to make the approach and landing circuits integrated in the traffic of the other existing planes without needing special derogations which Concorde could not do it. A Mirage III of the French Air Force, the flight of which, apart from all procedures and regulations came too close to the TU-144 to the point of open fire with its 30 mm canons causing the “canard” wing to break. In the poor quality 16 mm film from French TV we see that as the Mirage approaches, pieces of the “canard” wing fall. Due to the low speed of the plane the lift on the wings was no longer assured and the crash became inevitable. Any other explanation is smoke and intox to hide French responsibilities. The official report on the crash mentions "cause undeterminée", the investigation was the responsibility of France. The French engineers were very interested in titanium parts of the wreckage as the metalurgy of this metal was unknown in the West. Most UA-cam channels like yours don't show the Mirage approaching footage and canard wing falling but only the moment TU-144 break apart and falls.
Unless the word has been copyrighted somehow, I do not understand the seemingly intentional misspelling of the name of the Concorde...both on the title card and in the title itself, this video appears to be about a town in the US state of New Hampshire. This is not rivet counting, this is basic information that is incorrect, so I hope you understand why I broach the issue. 💯 Edit: It is good to see the spelling has been changed to Concorde.👍
The host of the show asks the question: where could the USSR get the strength and resources to implement the project? The USSR is a gigantic country chock full of resources. And the Bolsheviks, who came to power, immediately launched a large-scale program of industrialization and training of engineers and technical specialists. In 1918, in a country still devastated by the war, the Bolsheviks created 100 research institutes. In the 1920s, the USSR spent 12% of its budget on education. In 1941 - 15.5%, in 1945 - 26.4%. The host of the show himself recalls the fact that the USSR was ahead of the West in the space race. But for some reason he doesn’t ask himself why this happened? So the question asked by the show host is at least incorrect.
The Tu-144 also never really made sense from an economic standpoint either. There was always the question of, "who exactly was supposed to fly on it?" In the West, the Concorde lasted as long as it did because it was wildly expensive, mainly serving the rich and famous as a high class, first rate experience, which is understandable given its high development and operational costs. The USSR, being communist and all, didn't really have any rich people(or at least not that many) to fill that niche, so it couldn't be marketed that way. They weren't even allowed to charge extra for the tickets. The prices weren't much different from a regular flight, so it could never break even, let alone turn a profit. So in the end, the Tu-144 was really only good as a propaganda tool and a prestige project.
Thanks as always, David. NASA has a new civil supersonic flight program. Well, actually they've been at it for over two years that I know of. Check out the X-59 if you're curious or UA-cam videos featuring the "Quiet Crew".
I think this is a perfect example of the prevailing mentality of both the East and the West during the cold war: "They are doing that, so we should too." Although this could be expected with regard to armaments and bigger and bigger nukes ('we need to stay safe and protect ourselves!'), it could be argued that it wasn't really necessary for the Space Race, and certainly not warranted for a commercial supersonic passenger airliner. Just because the UK and France were building Concorde, the US and USSR could easily have sat back and taken a wait-and-see approach then built something better if they wanted to, or at least better suited to their needs. Also, regarding the cabin noise inside the TU144: My understanding is that the design of Concorde had pipework throughout the airframe through which they pumped the fuel around on its way to the engines to cool the aircraft down, and this significantly reduced the air conditioning requirements inside the fuselage as well as reducing weight. The TU144 didn't have this so needed much, much larger air conditioning equipment, hence the extra noise and significant noise when running.
Where did that comment come from? You’ve just watched a video about two highly-advanced aircraft with no US involvement whatsoever, whereas the intended US rival never got off the drawing board as it was considered too difficult an ambition with the technology available at the time…
Tu-144 was a terrible plane with enormous defects that never got close to matching the feats of Concorde. In fact the USSR requested multiple times technology transfer to try and improve the Tui-144. Concorde was built to unbelievable standards in order for it to be fuel efficient enough to cross the Atlantic with safety margin, fully laden. Tu-144 needed canards to be stable, something Concorde designers dismissed because they added so much weight it would not have met its design goals as a viable airliner. Concorde's wing profile had to be finely tuned to be stable at slow speed but low drag at cruise. World firsts were created like state of the art fly by wire engine computer control, carbon brakes to stop without parachutes and the most efficient jet engines ever built to that point. Tu-144 had none of these and was never a match. It was like being inside a washing machine the noise when it flew, it had no range when laden, would never meet any Western safety standards. I cannot put too finer a point on how astounding Concorde actually was as an engineering accomplishment.
At the beginning of the video, my first thought was how big of a mistake it was for the USSR to ignore computers. Turns out, that's another reason the Tu-144 failed.
Mr The Cold War, my good sir, a much correct pronounciation of "Tupolev" is "Too-poh-lev" and not "Too-peh-lov" : you seemed to have had swapped the last two vowels.
The agreement to develop Concorde between the UK and French governments was signed in late 1962, so 6 and half years, not 10. There had been designs and concepts dating to the 1950’s, however at the 1961 Paris Airshow both BAC and SUD showed models of a SST with the same configuration and same choice of engines. The costs, even then, meant a joint project. The Soviets never mastered computer control of the variable engine intake ramps necessary for supersonic flight, Concorde first flew with the prototype analog system which would not be viable for airline service. Technology had caught up and from the pre production aircraft, a digital system, each engine had two ramps so eight systems. There was a Soviet request in the early 70’s to use this technology, since it would be useful for supersonic bombers it was refused. This was one of a number of technological gaps that made the TU-144 unviable for service, hence the tiny of of flights, most carrying mail and never internationally.
About that last line, I wonder if people in today's Russia really understand how much the western nations and their people really were rooting for Russia to succeed in the 1990s? Obviously they didn't, and the Reaganite/Thatcherite advisors we sent Russia did her no favors. But there was a genuine hope that Russia would somehow be changed the way Japan and West Germany had been, only without the expense.
7 місяців тому
Thx for the Video. I have seen the two at that german museum some years agon and it is quite a sight. But they were a bit bare from the insdie unfortunatly
Kind of they had the foxbat it was almost as fast but damaged it's engines ever time it went above match 2.5 (roundabout) and was made of stainless steel because they didn't have enough skilled welders for titanium and it was expensive the black bird had issues with bad titanium and had to scrap a load. The only readeaming feature was it's rador that until one defected to Japan was unjamable it used good old valves there are some good vids out there just look up foxbat
And Concorde was not a commercial success in anyway or form. It couldn’t fly supersonic into the USA thanks to public protests, it was uneconomical to use and only found a market as a high end transport for those able to pay the high price of a ticket (which were upped 4x) to cover the loses the plane had gathered over the previous 10-15 years. And of course we all know the sad circumstances of its retirement. I hoped you weren’t another propaganda channel… oh well btw only 20 Concorde’s were produced ever.. so your point about Tu-144 production numbers is pretty pathetic
I think this channel would become even more popular if David moves on from Cold war to Modern History. Topics such as; -Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -Al Qaeda's war with US -Somali Pirate Crisis -Oil spill during Obama's tenure Topics like this would be very helpful
@David and The Cold War, I know we like to meme the soviets for their commie blunders (sometimes deservedly), but what are some things they did right/better than us in the Capitalist West? Genuinely curious. Cheers
I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. It just wasn’t sustainable, and neither was Concord. Without the good ole tax dollars from the citizens neither would have made it
The Exact Circumstance ?? THE EXACT CIRCUMSTANCE ??? Save your money, i can crack that case wide open, i can solve THAT Mystery .. "The Exact Circumstance" Was 3 Drunk Ivans HotDogging a Rageddy Ass Plane, Tryna Do Tricks & Shit ..
TU-144 the SST technology in USSR was decades away from the West. Structure failure happened due to cracks in production n engines couldnt super cruse. TU-160 solved issues in 82
Guys, just a quick correction. The Tu-144 never had winglets. It had retractable canards, which are the wing-like surfaces right behind the cockpit. And they were clearly already added before the 1973 Paris air show since they are clearly visible in the footage. Winglets are the things that look like shark fins at the tip of the wings, clearly seen in any modern airliner, and became something more common in aeronautical designs from the early 90's onwards, but existed way before then.
Yeah, that really irked me. I also didn't understand his point about the "horizontal stabiliser". Idk if he was referring to the canards or the main delta wing.
The sonic boom along with loud engines that needed to be in afterburner to maintain supersonic speeds & relatively short range which that is why the Moscow to Almaty route was chose.
Indeed, just look at, in particular the ogival shaped wing of Concorde, especially the definitive production version, compared to the rather crude delta of the TU-144. A lot of development went into the ogival wing for a reason.
Then I am biased, being in the BA Concorde Engineering department for 7 years!
Have you visited the german sinsheim museum.
There they have a Concorde and tu144 side by side.
The Tu144 is certainly bulkier and had more room inside. But the wing is much cruder.
The Concorde’s curves look like they were sandpapered out of marble by Michelangelo himself.
No wonder Concorde managed supersonic supercruise without afterburners, and the tupolev couldnt. Maybe they didnt have the engine inlet slats as well controlled as well. I remember reading, the Concorde required a big computer to manage the engine inlet airspeed, but that it made the engines much much more eficient at supercruise speeds.
I still dream of some billionaire aircraft fan to build a modern updated Concorde. Like the same fuselage, just modern computers and engines, making for an even more efficient aircraft.
@@mjfan653 Each A.I.C.U. (Air Intake Control Unit) on Concorde was about the size of a carton on cigarettes.
Made by the Guided Weapon beach of the British Aircraft Corporation.
Concorde also pioneered electronic engine controls, a hybrid (with manual back up) fly by wire system - a step to full FBW on the Airbus A320, carbon brakes plus of course the bi national aspect of the project, a first at the time.
For anyone who is interested: The pair, concorde/tu144. is open for viewing in the Tecknik museum in Sinsheim, Germany. For any person interested in engineering, highly recommend visiting when nearby due to also some other rares and unique pieces, basically anything that has a remarkable story with a combustion engine is visible.
I travelled over 2000 kilometers to see them…. Twice.
They are both magnificent aircraft. Had the soviets worked a bit more on the tu144 it could have been even better than Concorde.
It was bigger and roomier. But took to much fuel, had they worked on making the airframe sleaker and more eficient, they could have had a winner.
And it is super interesting to compare the two, as they are next to each other, I recommend supersonics fans take two days at the museum, and one of those mainly reserved for comparing the two, just taking in the unique airframes and their features. And even if you dont care too much about the concordes, sinsheim deserves two day, as the museum is super big and interesting.
I have actually been planning a trip to this museum to view it. I’m on the other side of the world in Australia so it’s going to be a big trip.
@@mjfan653 Nonsense. The TU 144 could not achieve ANY design parameter and could never do so. What you mean is "If they had a completely different design of wings and airframe and better engines then it would have been better than Concorde" Analyse what you said and then admit you are writing nonsense.
Fantastic museum I loved every minute I was there
I remember the Boing 2707 project (the Supersonic Transport or SST) the USA was going to outdo both the Anglo French and Soviet Aircraft. Due to major cost overruns and technical issues the project was cancelled. The Seattle NBA team "The Supersonics" were named in anticipation of the 2707 being produced there.
Sir George Edwards CEO of BAC was asked about the 'US SST' he said "It is supposed to be capable of Mach 3, of which we have just minutes of experience, carry 250 passengers, largest proposed carrier, with Variable Geometry Wings, no examples in service currently, using engines which don't exist yet and weigh a Million Pounds. It ain't going to happen!, "
Congress cut all funding. The supersonic flight restrictions and the drastic increase in fuel costs doomed it
@@uingaeoc3905going for Mach 3 was dumb. If they had focused on Mach 2 there would have been an American Concorde ish plane
@@uingaeoc3905 I mean out of of all the countries out there the USA by that point had far ore experience at mach 3 than anyone else with the SR-71 family and Valkyrie bomber.
@@MrGeforcerFX Not at that point - the XB70 flew for just over an hour and a half at Mach3 between 1964 to 1969 and SR71 from flight trials in 1966. Concorde was being developed from extensive and in service Mach 2 planes from the late 1950s and first flew in 1969 - it was on a different scale to those predecessors, 100 passengers sustained for 3,000 miles. The Soviets took the same view. Any US alternative to it should have adopted those parameters and not 'going for broke', so it didn't and couldn't happen.
To David and the entire Cold War crew, it would mean a lot to me if you made these following videos:
- Argentina during the rule of Juan Peron
- Thailand's on-and-off military governments and lese-majeste laws
- Gastarbeiters (foreign migrant workers) in both West and East Germany
- The Paris massacre of 1961 (related to the Algerian War)
- Two Korean organisations in Japan (the pro-Pyongyang Chongryon and the pro-Seoul Mindan)
- Bantustans (black homelands) in Apartheid-era South Africa
- The history of Mongolia as a communist state during the Cold War
- The history of Macau during the Cold War and how it contrasts with Hong Kong's Cold War history
Thank you very much and please accept my requests.
I'd love to see the logistics of the Berlin corridors. (Other than during the Berlin airlift.)
- Could the Soviets stop an inspect the contents?
- Did the Soviets have any controls or guards at either end to regulate traffic?
- How were they guarded to prevent people from entering or leaving them while they crossed East German territory?
- Were there any attempts to use them to inject spies from either side?
- Were they ever used as an escape attempt by East Germans?
A cohosted episode with The Ushanka Show guy
@@yabgu26 how does the manner of speaking make the stuff a person says biased?
@@yabgu26 I don't watch that guy and I don't understand what you mean by that. Does he justify Soviet crimes?
it would mean a lot to David S and the entire Cold War Crew, if you would purchase their monthly channel membership. That way, you can make their requests and show, that you pay in supportingtheir content. I know everyone can't afford it, heck I barely can but the bottom tier, is better than nothing. Nothing is for free, my friend.
I highly recommend the channel Mustard for aviation history. But I love the greater context of this video.
Try Paper Skies if you like Soviet era. His dad was a pilot for the USSR and he's incredibly talented.
The TU-144 and the Concorde were national vanity projects.
@johnregan6323 ….national funded projects to have SSTs. Despite knowing it would always be at a financial loss.
12:04 This is too cool! I’ve always wondered about some of what you’re explaining.
But as you are relaying the story, I’ve bookmarked I couldn’t help, but think that it says a lot about the excitement and national pride of the pilots to try to show off the superiority of their plane by deliberately using it in a manner other than intended.
Genuinely shocked when i heard the Concorde had 50,000 flights. Amazing!
We saw the Concorde on the runway at Nairobi when we were flying from Johannesburg to Luxembourg on a Lux Air 707 in,i think,1983.We must have landed in Kenya to refueling.
Been wondering if this Tu 144 was going to get a video from The Cold War . Glad to see this! I was fascinated as a young person by the differences between this plane and the Concord. Easy to see where the Soviets "cut corners" and tried keeping supersonic transports in their service. Thank you for this The Cold War channel !!
The t144 that broke the sound barrier was not the same aircraft that crashed at Paris it was a redesign
Hmmm. Flying an airliner like is a fighter have absolutely nothing to do with its mid-air breakup in Paris.
The Soviet aircraft was always going to be bigger, that’s a Soviet trope when competing with the West, see Khrushchev’s Tu-104 that was 20 feet higher on the hardstand than Western Airliners making it difficult for him to get out when first arriving in the US.
Concorde has a unique Sigmoidal-wing shape, which had taken 1,000s of hours of wind-tunnel work to perfect and gave good lift across the necessary slow speed manoeuvres of take-off and landing and achieve Mach 2 in flight. The Tu-144’s more conventional idea of a double stepped Delta-wing is a compromise of two Delta-wing shapes, one optimised for low speed and one to achieve supersonic speed. There wasn’t really a military equivalent to copy here as most Jet bombers used rocket assisted take-off and landed on extended runways at that time. The canards (what you call winglets here) were necessary because in test flying the landing speed was so high it would require a longer runway and these help manoeuvre the attitude of the wings on landing & manage the stall as they bled off speed. As a result of that rather brutally compromised wing shape, controlling the aircraft in manoeuvre at close to stall speeds was more difficult (dangerous), as its wing shape doesn’t provide an even lift across attitudes and speed range. This is why it was so much easier to push the Concordski beyond its limits of control leading to the Paris crash. This Soviet legacy of “first to crash” is why it only saw use within the Soviet Union and never became an international competitor. Like the failed Soviet Moon program, it was conceived as a response to a Western program and not like the original Soviet plan to conquer Low Earth Orbit which was very successful.
Soviet aircraft weren't bigger as a means of compensation, they were bigger because the Soviet Union, whilst having excellent engineers, didn't have as many advancements in miniaturization, electronics and materials sciences as the West did. The Tu104 was so tall because it was merely a Tu116 with the wings dropped down the fuselage for a more traditional passenger cabin configuration, necessitating taller landing gear.
Just in January, I was there in Germany, you can go inside both the Tupolev and the Concordia.
A dc8 broke the sound barrier on a test flight long before either tu144 or Concorde first flew
No you’re totally misunderstanding what makes an aircraft supersonic. Achieving it in a dive absolutely does not count. Thats like pushing your average family car off a high cliff then claiming it can achieve 200 mph.
I always love the contrast in tech, with the Concord and the TU-144…not to mention the Space Shuttle and Buran.
I didn’t know NASA actually used these planes in experiments!
In retrospect, the west should have announced research into a transmogrifier, a time-machine, a point-to point transporter and a warp-drive.
The Soviets might have actually come up with at least one of them...................
It’s was the Tu-144D (a later production variant) that used the RD-51-36 engines not the prototype. The prototype would have used the Kuznetsov NK-144 Turbofan with afterburners. The Tu-144S used the same engines and was the main version that saw service first carrying passengers and then freight after passenger services ceased in 1978.
Never mind that , Prehaps they need to get some indoor Tolets , it is 2024 after all .
One was designed to be a commercially viable supersonic airplane while the other was designed to be the first commercial airplane to reach supersonic speeds for the bragging rights. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Soviets built the airplane first and then tried to find a use for it.
Great to see you back man - I was worried.
As for her legacy, there was a program by Tupolev running till the end of the USSR to build a newer and improved version, Tu-244. And in the 2000s they revealed a concept for a Business-Concordsky, Tu-444, but that went nowhere.
The problems with the Tu-144 stemmed from it being the product of industrial espionage. Whilst they had the design Tupolev didn't understand what they had and they didn't have the production engineering package. This meant they had to re-engineer many of the parts and systems to match what the USSR could produce.
As we see in many areas Soviet, and now Russian, raw figures meant little, they largely amounted to spurious claims or absolute maximums compared to Aérospatiale/BAC's more conservative figures that came with a considerable safety margin.
to copy an aircraft you need to copy it piece by piece to maintain the static aerodynamic stability that an aircraft needs to remain controllable without fly by wire systems not to mention center of gravity and center of pressure concerns. See the TU-4 for an actual copy of an aircraft. I agree that the systems are eerily similar on the concorde and TU-144 are very similar but it lacks certain very critical features like a structural system to arrest and limit the propagation of cracks that the concorde had which probably led up to the TU-144 breaking up in flight in the paris air show.
Western aviation had developed that technology after the mid-flight explosions and breakups of the de havilland comet in the pioneering days of jet aviation. The crack arresting feature is called a tear strap and it's not high tech at all and doesn't require any advanced materials engineering it would be strange of the soviets to not use that feature in their design since they did discover cracking issues with the fuselage in testing.
Maybe they got some peeks into the design concepts and had their own ways of implementing those but I don't think it goes any farther than that. It has a delta wing which was well known to the soviets since they made the MiG-21 Fishbed, variable engine inlets that was also technology developed for supersonic flight in military jets including the Fishbed. The Concorde used fuel to cool more systems than the TU-144 did and I'd think the soviets would use the same designs they did if they had the plans, since it's a simple and effective way to cool and heat things as needed. Using fuel to cool hydraulics or oil is also not a novel concept but as far as I know using it for air conditioning was a novel one which the Concorde did and the TU-144 didn't.
Soviet aviation being focused on military projects led to it not being very safety or design focused since their design philiosophy was relatively cheap production, short lifespan and pilots which were basically conscripts compared to western pilots and the planes were designed to reflect that. They were easy to fly with lots of automation (See interviews of RAF pilots that got to fly the SU-27 on aircrew interview), poor attention to detail and longevity like the lack of airframe refinements like countersunk rivets, comparatively poor cockpit layouts and engines that had hideosly low time before overhaul or replacement compared to western aircraft could list more but I think it gets the point across. If they had an airframe or powerplant failiure the pilot ejects and hopefully doesn't break his spine and the aircraft is just the cost of doing business. But that line of thinking and design does not go well when you're risking 150 civilians plus crew compared to one military pilot that signed up and accepted the risk of life altering injury at best and death in worst case if something goes wrong.
I think it was a poorly thought design that was an ego project for the soviets and not much more since it was poorly designed and tested and had limited use case calling it a contemporary of the concorde is almost insulting to the english and french engineers when you consider how much better the concorde is in almost every aspect.
@mertvaran5733 yhank you for your knoedge. Tou clearly know your stuff when it comes to this topic!
😂
Actually the first commercial airliner to go supersonic was a DC-8, before being delivered to Canadian Pacific. I flew in that aircraft as a kid.
Yep 727 were fast too in one that broke route record 95 mach
No the DC8 could not reach Mach 1 in level flight, which is the very definition of what makes a supersonic aircraft.
The Tu144 was not the first passenger airliner to reach super sonic speed, but it was the first to be intended to. During the flight tests of the DC8 they tested the overspeed with a 20% over run. So they stuck it in a shallow dive and made it go super sonic, because safety. It survived
And it was in its customer’s livery, Canadian Pacific. I flew on that aircraft as a kid.
Incorrect info. An aircraft that breaks Mach 1 in a dive is not considered to have achieved supersonic flight. Only level flight is recognised.
Well… the spectators certainly saw something alright
Shrapnel at about 2200 ft per second?
As the old joke goes, slightly adjusted for the subject, Tu-144 might be uneconomical to run but at least it's uncomfortable.
On the TU-144 crash in June 1973 at Le Bourget: On the last day of the show the flagship demonstration consisted in the maneuverability in low speed of approach and landing of the TU-144 thanks to the have much larger surface wing,flaps of greater dimension and to the wing "canard retractable in the nose of the apparatus allowed the TU-144 to make the approach and landing circuits integrated in the traffic of the other existing planes without needing special derogations which Concorde could not do it. A Mirage III of the French Air Force, the flight of which, apart from all procedures and regulations came too close to the TU-144 to the point of open fire with its 30 mm canons causing the “canard” wing to break. In the poor quality 16 mm film from French TV we see that as the Mirage approaches, pieces of the “canard” wing fall. Due to the low speed of the plane the lift on the wings was no longer assured and the crash became inevitable. Any other explanation is smoke and intox to hide French responsibilities. The official report on the crash mentions "cause undeterminée", the investigation was the responsibility of France. The French engineers were very interested in titanium parts of the wreckage as the metalurgy of this metal was unknown in the West. Most UA-cam channels like yours don't show the Mirage approaching footage and canard wing falling but only the moment TU-144 break apart and falls.
Unless the word has been copyrighted somehow, I do not understand the seemingly intentional misspelling of the name of the Concorde...both on the title card and in the title itself, this video appears to be about a town in the US state of New Hampshire. This is not rivet counting, this is basic information that is incorrect, so I hope you understand why I broach the issue. 💯
Edit: It is good to see the spelling has been changed to Concorde.👍
The French wanted the silent "e" and the British did not. Concordski was intended to mock the Soviet effort. Does that clarify all the variants?
The French got their way with the spelling Concorde as concord would be pronounced in French as concor or conquer or conker.
Concorde lost money
That is not sucessful commercial air travel
Did it?
If you haven't done so already, could you do a video on the Buran space shuttle?
You should do an episode on the Buran space shuttle.
Pretty interesting story from the Cold War era.
EXCELLENT !!!
Soviet aviation, ah yes the great program that thought that using potable vodka in the air conditioning system was a good idea.
I love all things cold war but this has been covered countless times on UA-cam.
Good day to you all!
The host of the show asks the question: where could the USSR get the strength and resources to implement the project? The USSR is a gigantic country chock full of resources. And the Bolsheviks, who came to power, immediately launched a large-scale program of industrialization and training of engineers and technical specialists. In 1918, in a country still devastated by the war, the Bolsheviks created 100 research institutes. In the 1920s, the USSR spent 12% of its budget on education. In 1941 - 15.5%, in 1945 - 26.4%. The host of the show himself recalls the fact that the USSR was ahead of the West in the space race. But for some reason he doesn’t ask himself why this happened? So the question asked by the show host is at least incorrect.
There were actually few comparisons between the 144 and the Concorde all of which were to the detriment of the Soviet plane.
The Tu-144 also never really made sense from an economic standpoint either. There was always the question of, "who exactly was supposed to fly on it?" In the West, the Concorde lasted as long as it did because it was wildly expensive, mainly serving the rich and famous as a high class, first rate experience, which is understandable given its high development and operational costs. The USSR, being communist and all, didn't really have any rich people(or at least not that many) to fill that niche, so it couldn't be marketed that way. They weren't even allowed to charge extra for the tickets. The prices weren't much different from a regular flight, so it could never break even, let alone turn a profit. So in the end, the Tu-144 was really only good as a propaganda tool and a prestige project.
They are always serving up something Red Hot !
I do like some agrarian themed aviation design. Crude effective and expensive
First time seeing the background, hilarious you have a pic of Brezhnev kissing someone else in the background.
2:47 say what you want about the Soviets but their salutes were very ahead of their time
IT’S WHISPER QUIET!
The Tu-144 Juice Loosener.
lol. I’d forgotten what device Dr. Nick and Troy Maclure were shilling.
The glazing is pretty insane this episode, what’s up with that?
Luckily, there were only 14 Concorde's.
Luckily???
Nice refrence I'm the intro
Talking head. Talking without breathing... that's hard to withstand for more than a few minutes.
Those are canards, not winglets 😊
They should've called it Concordski.
I would like to see an episode on India Pakistan 1965 war
Thanks as always, David.
NASA has a new civil supersonic flight program. Well, actually they've been at it for over two years that I know of. Check out the X-59 if you're curious or UA-cam videos featuring the "Quiet Crew".
Not winglets but Canard.
I think this is a perfect example of the prevailing mentality of both the East and the West during the cold war: "They are doing that, so we should too." Although this could be expected with regard to armaments and bigger and bigger nukes ('we need to stay safe and protect ourselves!'), it could be argued that it wasn't really necessary for the Space Race, and certainly not warranted for a commercial supersonic passenger airliner. Just because the UK and France were building Concorde, the US and USSR could easily have sat back and taken a wait-and-see approach then built something better if they wanted to, or at least better suited to their needs.
Also, regarding the cabin noise inside the TU144: My understanding is that the design of Concorde had pipework throughout the airframe through which they pumped the fuel around on its way to the engines to cool the aircraft down, and this significantly reduced the air conditioning requirements inside the fuselage as well as reducing weight. The TU144 didn't have this so needed much, much larger air conditioning equipment, hence the extra noise and significant noise when running.
Great video David! I have always wondered about the TU-144, great information!
Imagine if the US and USSR worked together where we would be today.
Where did that comment come from? You’ve just watched a video about two highly-advanced aircraft with no US involvement whatsoever, whereas the intended US rival never got off the drawing board as it was considered too difficult an ambition with the technology available at the time…
Tu-144 was a terrible plane with enormous defects that never got close to matching the feats of Concorde. In fact the USSR requested multiple times technology transfer to try and improve the Tui-144. Concorde was built to unbelievable standards in order for it to be fuel efficient enough to cross the Atlantic with safety margin, fully laden. Tu-144 needed canards to be stable, something Concorde designers dismissed because they added so much weight it would not have met its design goals as a viable airliner. Concorde's wing profile had to be finely tuned to be stable at slow speed but low drag at cruise. World firsts were created like state of the art fly by wire engine computer control, carbon brakes to stop without parachutes and the most efficient jet engines ever built to that point. Tu-144 had none of these and was never a match. It was like being inside a washing machine the noise when it flew, it had no range when laden, would never meet any Western safety standards. I cannot put too finer a point on how astounding Concorde actually was as an engineering accomplishment.
Cool story, clown. Read less various maculature
Tupolev. Tooo-Poh-lev!
The Concordski
It's TupoLEV not TupoLOV
At the beginning of the video, my first thought was how big of a mistake it was for the USSR to ignore computers. Turns out, that's another reason the Tu-144 failed.
Canards, not "winglets".
Good episode.
Good video but you need to check your mic settings because there's an annoying tinny reverb you need to reduce in the future.
🙂👍
"Pushing it beyond its capabilities and design" would reoccur in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Challendger, 1986
@@karlwaltherno
@@michaeldunham3385 1986 - Gore Oklahoma, 29,500 Pounds Radioactive Uranium Hexafluoride Gas Release.
Mr The Cold War, my good sir, a much correct pronounciation of "Tupolev" is "Too-poh-lev" and not "Too-peh-lov" : you seemed to have had swapped the last two vowels.
Even closer woukd be "Toooo-pah-lyeff", the "u" seems to have an extended length.
👍
Concordeski!!
Things they don't tell you about ussr , yes they had the first person in space but also had their FIRST toilet paper plant in 1979.
setarko viewer?
Koncordsky
Concordski
The agreement to develop Concorde between the UK and French governments was signed in late 1962, so 6 and half years, not 10.
There had been designs and concepts dating to the 1950’s, however at the 1961 Paris Airshow both BAC and SUD showed models of a SST with the same configuration and same choice of engines. The costs, even then, meant a joint project.
The Soviets never mastered computer control of the variable engine intake ramps necessary for supersonic flight, Concorde first flew with the prototype analog system which would not be viable for airline service.
Technology had caught up and from the pre production aircraft, a digital system, each engine had two ramps so eight systems.
There was a Soviet request in the early 70’s to use this technology, since it would be useful for supersonic bombers it was refused.
This was one of a number of technological gaps that made the TU-144 unviable for service, hence the tiny of of flights, most carrying mail and never internationally.
They denied asking for help till this day
🇺🇸
About that last line, I wonder if people in today's Russia really understand how much the western nations and their people really were rooting for Russia to succeed in the 1990s? Obviously they didn't, and the Reaganite/Thatcherite advisors we sent Russia did her no favors. But there was a genuine hope that Russia would somehow be changed the way Japan and West Germany had been, only without the expense.
Thx for the Video. I have seen the two at that german museum some years agon and it is quite a sight. But they were a bit bare from the insdie unfortunatly
And the TU-144 fell apart mid air from the onset
The problem with this channel is that it is super boring
Did the Soviets have their own version of the SR-71 Blackbird ?
Seems that this Soviet Tu-144 is a step in the right direction of a military variant
Kind of they had the foxbat it was almost as fast but damaged it's engines ever time it went above match 2.5 (roundabout) and was made of stainless steel because they didn't have enough skilled welders for titanium and it was expensive the black bird had issues with bad titanium and had to scrap a load. The only readeaming feature was it's rador that until one defected to Japan was unjamable it used good old valves there are some good vids out there just look up foxbat
Did the Canadian government f this one up too somehow? Wouldn't doubt if they did. Always dropping the ball, always playing both sides of the fence.
Huh? What does Canada have to do with this?
Rezizigned?
👍👍
And Concorde was not a commercial success in anyway or form. It couldn’t fly supersonic into the USA thanks to public protests, it was uneconomical to use and only found a market as a high end transport for those able to pay the high price of a ticket (which were upped 4x) to cover the loses the plane had gathered over the previous 10-15 years. And of course we all know the sad circumstances of its retirement. I hoped you weren’t another propaganda channel… oh well btw only 20 Concorde’s were produced ever.. so your point about Tu-144 production numbers is pretty pathetic
IMO they stole alot of the Concord’s plans. That was their usual MO.
I think this channel would become even more popular if David moves on from Cold war to Modern History.
Topics such as;
-Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
-Al Qaeda's war with US
-Somali Pirate Crisis
-Oil spill during Obama's tenure
Topics like this would be very helpful
Early Squad!
🤔 Promo*SM
Why do I think the Soviets lifted the Concorde plans
Had to give up watching this. Way too many errors…….
Its no failed, stupid pitch !
If Concord was a Mercedes of sky. Tu-144 was Russian Fiat, Lada of sky. летающий снегоочиститель
@David and The Cold War, I know we like to meme the soviets for their commie blunders (sometimes deservedly), but what are some things they did right/better than us in the Capitalist West? Genuinely curious. Cheers
I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. It just wasn’t sustainable, and neither was Concord. Without the good ole tax dollars from the citizens neither would have made it
first
Incorrect, 144D had no afterburners and could go supersonic
Great vid but it’s a pity that such a dreadful background track is included and at such loudness .
Thanks!
The Exact Circumstance ??
THE EXACT CIRCUMSTANCE ???
Save your money, i can crack that case wide open, i can solve THAT Mystery ..
"The Exact Circumstance" Was 3 Drunk Ivans HotDogging a Rageddy Ass Plane, Tryna Do Tricks & Shit ..
TU-144 the SST technology in USSR was decades away from the West. Structure failure happened due to cracks in production n engines couldnt super cruse.
TU-160 solved issues in 82