[2] The Tu-144 was the world's first commercial supersonic transport aircraft with its prototype's maiden flight from Zhukovsky Airport on 31 December 1968, two months before the British-French Concorde.

[1][page needed] The Tu-144 conducted 102 commercial flights, of which only 55 carried passengers, at an average service altitude of 16,000 metres (52,000 ft) and cruised at a speed of around 2,200 kilometres per hour (1,400 mph) (Mach 2).

[5] Reliability and developmental issues restricted the viability of the Tu-144 for regular use; these factors, together with repercussions of the 1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash, projections of high operating costs, and rising fuel prices and environmental concerns outside the Soviet Union, caused foreign customer interest to wane.

While the idea of SSTs was controversial in the West due to noise and environmental pollution concerns, the Soviet Union planned to continue with their development, largely for its long Siberian and Central Asian routes.

[7] Aeroflot, the flag carrier of the Soviet Union, had an extensive network of interconnected airfields and increasing international reach, with hopes of extending flights to Sydney, Australia.

[7] Given the geopolitical climate during the Cold War period, the Soviet Union was intent on not just matching, but surpassing Western advancements, particularly in aerospace technology.

The directive from Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union at that time, was clear: not only prevent the West from getting ahead, but also compete fiercely, even to the extent of leapfrogging their technological advancements, if necessary.

Airframe heating and the high temperature properties of the primary structural materials, which were aluminium alloys, set the maximum speed at Mach 2.2.

[5] The only engine available in time with the required thrust and suitable for testing and perfecting the aircraft was the afterburning Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofan with a cruise SFC of 1.58 kg/kgp hr.

While at the time, this approach was heralded as an advanced feature of the design, it turned out that finished parts contained defects which had not been detected in the raw material.

The Tu-144 was placed in an environmental chamber and heated to simulate the skin getting hot quickly, during acceleration to cruising speed, while the underlying structure took a while to reach its equilibrium temperature.

The pressure in the cabin, which caused additional stresses, was changed at the same time as the skin heating to simulate climbing to cruise altitude and then descending.

Repeatedly cycling the temperature and pressure, as happened with the aircraft in service, caused fatigue damage[22] and the airframe failed in a similar way to that of the TsAGI load testing.

Concorde's first flight was originally scheduled for February 1968, but was pushed back several times until March 1969 in order to iron out problems and test components more thoroughly.

Sixteen airworthy Tu-144 airplanes were built: Although its last commercial passenger flight was in 1978, production of the Tu-144 did not cease until 1983, when construction of the final airframe was stopped and left partially complete.

An Aeroflot freight-only service recommenced using the new production variant Tu-144D ("D" for Dal'nyaya – "long range")[citation needed] aircraft on 23 June 1979, including longer routes from Moscow to Khabarovsk made possible by the more efficient Kolesov RD-36-51 turbojet engines, which also increased the maximum cruising speed to Mach 2.15.

Additionally, a metal fatigue problem was discovered in the tip of the aircraft's vertical stabilizer; this was mitigated by adding a titanium doubler plate.

Tejavia Systems, the company handling the transaction, reported that the deal was not signed as the replacement Kuznetsov NK-321 engines also used in a Tupolev Tu-160 bomber were military hardware and the Russian government would not allow them to be exported.

(The design of air intakes' variable geometry and their control system was one of the most intricate features of Concorde, contributing to its fuel efficiency.

In late 1978, the USSR requested a wide range of Concorde technologies, evidently reflecting the broad spectrum of unresolved Tu-144 technical issues.

The list included de-icing equipment for the leading edge of the air intakes, fuel-system pipes and devices to improve durability of these pipes, drain valves for fuel tanks, fireproof paints, navigation and piloting equipment, systems and techniques for acoustical loading of airframe and controls (to test against acoustic fatigue caused by high jet-noise environment), ways to reinforce the airframe to withstand damage, firefighting equipment, including warning devices and lightning protection, emergency power supply, and landing gear spray guards (a.k.a.

By the late 1970s, Soviet promotional efforts shifted to the Ilyushin Il-86, a more economically efficient jumbo jet that went on to become the country's flagship airliner.

[23]: 91 Moon concluded that economic efficiency alone would not have doomed the Tu-144 altogether; continuation of token flights for reasons of political prestige would have been possible, if only the aircraft itself would have allowed for it, but it did not.

Cheryomukhin bitterly noted, "...our own leader – A.A. Tupolev – personally stopped the operation of the Tu-144, depriving the world of a source of evidence of the rationality of supersonic flight over land..."[23]: 91 After ceasing the Tu-144 programme, Tu-144D No.

[citation needed] To put the numbers in perspective, Concorde's service ceiling under a typical Transatlantic flight payload of 10 tonnes is 18,290 m (60,000 ft),[N 4] and this is higher than the record set by the Tu-144D.

After it had been rejected in bomber guise, Ustinov used the Military Industrial Commission (one of the most influential Soviet government bodies) to promote the aircraft to the Strategic Aviation as a reconnaissance or ECM platform, or both.

It was clear to me that these aircraft could not possibly work in concert with any bomber or missile carrier formation; likewise I could not imagine them operating solo as "Flying Dutchmen" in a war scenario, therefore I resolutely turned down the offer.

He managed to persuade the Navy C-in-C (admiral) S.G. Gorshkov who agreed to accept the Tu-144 for Naval Aviation service as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft without consulting anyone on the matter.

[63] In 2019, tail number 77114 was repainted in Aeroflot livery and put on display in front of the Gromov Flight Research institute main gate.

[71] At the end of the officially approved demonstration flight, which was an exact repeat of the previous day's display, instead of landing as expected, the aircraft entered a very steep climb before making a violent downwards manoeuvre.