hello everybody welcome back to another episode of mega projects in this one this is the sort of second part of a two-part so we did Concord earlier in the week and now we are doing the tupolev tu-144 which is essentially the soviet concorde you probably knew that from the title of this video but yeah it's kind of like the Soviet Union's attempt to making a Concorde it was in many ways much worse as you're gonna find out in today's video so let's jump in you don't need to watch the concorde video first you can watch it after this one or you don't have to watch it at all it's your free choice but I'd recommend its subscribe as well so you learn about future videos and let's jump in [Music] when you think about the world's first supersonic passenger liner only one name springs to mind Concorde however while Concorde certainly became the most famous airliner to break the speed of sound it certainly was not the first today a story that has long been overshadowed by its anglo-french rival it's a tale of political bloody mindedness that created one of the most extraordinary ramshackle pieces of aviation history we've ever seen it was an aircraft that was briefly the envy of the world before a catalogue of problems which we're gonna go into in today's video and a lot of depth brought it down this today in mega-projects is the rise of the tupolev tu-144 and i'll just point out just a little point before we start it while the story of the tu-144 may be littered with mistakes and decisions taken on safety that would leave your average health and safety officer curled up in the corner whimpering the fact that the Soviets got this plane into the air is still a true testament to both their tenacity and they're resourceful 'no sexperts usually agree that the tu-144 was about 10 to 15 years ahead of west soviet aviation technology was at the time compared to what was being used in the west their technology was simply subpar and yet they got their plane to fly two months before Concorde not to mention the fact that it was also bigger and it was faster so why exactly has the tu-144 slipped through the cracks of time well today the answers the 1960s and 70s saw a fierce rivalry between east and west the Soviet Union and the Western powers competed for just about everything technological advancements were seen as vital propaganda tools for both sides whether this was the space race the short-lived race to build the deepest ball in the world and I've got a video all about that which I will link to below or the race to become the first nation to take a passenger airliner supersonic by the early 1960s Soviet leaders we're getting a little bit nervous not one but two proposed supersonic airliners were in development in the West the American Boeing to 707 never actually reached the production phases and of course Concorde increased industrialization in the USSR and led to many important advancements especially in the early stages of the space race but this had also fueled an insatiable hunger to be first whether or not it was entirely safe or practical orders came down from above that the Soviet Union had to be Concorde into the skies the clock was ticking if here look at the tu-144 and concorde side by side without any markings you might well struggle to tell the difference as visually they're very alike they both have Delta wings and they have the distinctive pointed nose accusations of industrial espionage naturally erupted almost from day one the Soviets started the tu-144 after Concorde and yet finished it before the two projects had been developed in contrasting styles while Concorde was being developed for the world to see the tu-144 was kept well under wraps its maiden flight was held under such concealed circumstances that if it were to crash well they could completely cover it up all right so did the Soviets steal information about concourse well yeah almost certainly espionage from both sides it must be said was rampant at the time spies have been deployed around the world with many more willing simply to sell secrets for a quick buck a spy known as AC was later unmasked as James Doyle a British man who worked as an errand engineer at Filton in the UK was found to have passed 90,000 documents relating to concorde to the soviets while the French had their own problems as well Sergey Pavlov chief of the Paris offers for Aeroflot and though not linked with Concorde in any way authorities grew suspicious of his activities is eventually arresting him after seizing his briefcase police found numerous documents relating to Conchords brakes landing gear and structural design and he was quickly deported back to the Soviet Union how much of this information was useful though well that's another matter as I said the technology available in the West was far superior so while it's perfectly conceivable that certain aspects may have been copied tu-144 was certainly its own aircrafts yes they did share many similarities in shape but most agree that this was always going to be the standard design needed for a supersonic airliner [Music] there is one counterespionage remote that has persisted Sergei Pavlovich approached an employee working at the airfield that Concorde was based at with though that he might be able to supply in some samples of the rudder that was being used for the tires at this stage counterintelligence was well aware of Pavlov's motives and the story goes that they passed bogus samples to him with hope of hindering Soviet plans apparently what was handed over to the spy was nothing more than a chewing gum like substance probably not gonna work brilliant when a plane comes in for landing at 200 miles per hour this might seem a little cloak-and-dagger but this was the kind of tactics that were in operation throughout the Cold War whether this is entirely true and if so how much more fake information was passed to the Soviets we might never actually know on December 31st 1968 pictures emerged of the tu-144 airborne for the first time the choice of the last day of the year it was no coincidence the Soviet leaders had effectively decreed in 1963 that they would put a supersonic airliner into the skies by the end of 1968 that sows in it as I mentioned this was a tightly controlled inaugural flight with no independent media there to witness it what appeared there was bigger and faster than Concorde at 67 meters 215 feet in length it was three point seven meters 12 feet longer than its European rival and just under 100 tons it was more than 20 tons heavier than Concorde it also had more power each of its four engines combined with their afterburners could provide 44,000 pounds of thrust 6,000 pounds more than Concorde the Soviet plane at a maximum speed of 1,400 miles per hour 2,300 kilometers an hour which is roughly two and a half times faster than the top speed of a 737 it has an official service ceiling of 20,000 meters sixty-six thousand feet slightly faster and slightly higher than Concorde but as we'll get to in a moment despite having this ability it rarely achieved this there were numerous differences to the planes if you looked close enough though the tu-144 used moustache canards close to the front of the plane which helped to reduce the landing speed feature Concorde didn't require while Kong Court had two wheels at the front and two sets of four wheels under the wings the tu-144 had two at the front and 12 under the wings because the synthetic rubber used on the tu-144 was inferior to Kong courts the world got its first live glimpse of the tu-144 at the 1971 paris air show and it Wow a captive audience even those connected with Concorde agreed that the Soviets have put together a marvelous airplane the scene looked set for a two-way battle for the supersonic skies however this was about as good as it was going to get for the tu-144 I don't really know a better way to say it except that the tupolev tu-144 was just not a very good airplane yes they got it into the air before Concorde but the corners that were cut along the way is just extraordinary in short it was rushed it was really rushed in their eagerness to push the plane into the air Soviet designers had gambled dangerously a gamble the would end in disaster in 1973 which I'm gonna get to in a moment the tu-144 it was plagued with problems as soon as it appeared reporters on board were slightly shocked that rag-tag nature of the interior window blinds would fall down without anybody touching them in the very structure it just didn't feel solid the airplane was assembled from large blocks and panels many over 19 metres 62 feet long and 0.64 to one point to 7 meters to point ones 4.2 feet wide these were initially considered cutting-edge but it soon became apparent that the whole molded and machined parts contained serious defects and were particularly septa built to cracks which is not something you generally want in a plane then there was the noise a flight on Concorde was terrified by champagne caviar and pleasant conversation with whoever might be satin nearby probably a rich person it was a grand social events for many but aboard the tu-144 things could not have been more different the noise within the cabin at the tu-144 was about 90 to 95 decibels which is about the same as standing next to a running motorcycle now if you ever stood next to a running motorcycle you will know that it's nearly impossible to have a conversation with anybody around you and this was exactly the case on the tu-144 the noise was so loud the passengers resorted to passing notes between themselves which is probably not the dream that Soviet engineers had been aiming for the main reason for this was that unlike Concorde which could turn off its afterburners once it had reached supersonic speed and maintain a constant speed the tu-144 could not all four engines were required to fire ferociously and constantly this also meant that the aircraft had a much shorter maximum range of 3312 miles five thousand three hundred thirty kilometers to Conchords four thousand and twenty miles six thousand four hundred and seventy kilometers like any great rivalry the world longed for a showdown in the 1973 Paris Air Show was just that for the first time the world would finally see Concorde and the tupolev tu-144 go head-to-head in the skies above the French capital the first date went according to plan for both planes but the second was quite a different story Concorde was up first and displayed a similarly graceful yet steady flight the tu-144 flight also began well but as it came in for a routine landing the plane suddenly accelerated and climbed once again as this struggled skyward its engines lost power and it plunged back to earth breaking apart before crashing killing all six people on board a terrible accident was magnified even further as it destroyed 15 homes on the grounds killing a further eight people the exact causes of the crash remain unclear a popular Soviet take on it was that a French Mirage flying close by may have been attempting to take pictures of the tu-144 s canyons and got too close causing a reaction from the pilot fuel was thrown onto this theory when the official report by the French did not comment on the jet but it did appear in later reports however most experts agrees that the role of the jet was heavily exaggerated by the Soviets the more accepted view was that the crew on board had done away with the approved flight profile and in an attempt to outmatch Concorde the pilot at a catastrophic human error in a bizarre coincidence the crash site that day maybe six kilometers from where the first and only Concorde crash would occur 27 years later despite the horror of the Paris Air Show the tu-144 staggered on this was thanks in no small part to belligerent Soviet pride but it suffered from a steady stream of problems in total the tu-144 flew 102 commercial flights but only 55 with passengers on board incredibly these flight Spanish to clock up 226 notable flight issues ranging from problems before takeoff to end the plane landed eight of these was serious enough for the flight to be delayed or canceled between 1975 and 1977 the tu-144 was only ever used to transport the mail between Moscow and Almaty in Kazakhstan surely making it the most expensive postal service of all time in 1977 passengers were welcomes on board but only ever on the same route again timing was everything as this coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Russian Revolution the service it ran only once a week despite seven more tu-144 being readily available at the time though it was never admitted the Soviets had enormous doubts about this aeroplane not really surprising considering all the errors there is it and this is what probably explained its limited use their report published before the launch of a passenger service had labeled the airframe unsafe and not air worthy for regular use the fact that this airplane ever carried passengers is just nothing short of shocking the tu-144 averaged only 58 passengers per flight throughout its commercial use despite the fact that it of the capacity of 140 this was certainly not down to a lack of interest but it was basically down to the fact that they wanted to keep the numbers low in case there was an accident another factor that hindered its progress was who exactly was supposed to be using it flying on Concorde was an expensive travel decision at its peak a first-class ticket was as much as 30 times as expensive as the cheapest flight option this was outrageously expensive but when you consider the development and running costs it was at least understandable the Soviet Union being communist and all that travelers on the tu-144 to pay anything like these kinds of prices a seat on the tu-144 would set you back around 37 rubles which was remarkably similar to what you would pay on any other flight of that distance they made absolutely no financial sense but the powers-that-be seemed content to run it at a huge loss to save them from losing face it was this fear of embarrassment that sustains the Soviet effort but things finally came to a head on January the 25th 1978 the large number of foreign journalists and dignitaries sat on board at tu-144 is it ready for takeoff in Moscow it was at this point that the first of what would total 22 to 24 system failures on this specific flight began in total seven failures have occurred even before the plane took off unbelievably the decision was taken to press ahead with the flight out of fear of revealing the planes crippling deficiencies to their foreign guests it's really not gonna look good if that blame crashes once the plane was airborne a steadily increasing number of warning lights began flashing a crisis center on the grounds made the dark prediction that part of the landing gear would not be able to extend resulting in the plane needing to land on its left landing gear only now just we continue we should note that the wings on the tu-144 they were really good for flying supersonic but really not much else this meant that the plane landed at a terrifying speed of between 195 and 207 miles per hour 315 to 333 km/h before deploying a parachute to slow it down even on the best days it was a nightmare to land but let's get back to our story because at this point the situation was bad enough that Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was being personally updated on the stricken flight the Soviets held their breath as the tu-144 approached Almaty but miraculously the landing gear deployed without a hitch and the plane landed safely now this point Soviet leaders were beginning to lose patience and the end it seemed pretty near but not without one final hugely controversial roll of the dice the Soviets approached Lucas industries who had formed part of the design team for the engine control system on Concorde asking for technical assistance with to you one four four we can't quite overstate this that a project which was always designed to promote Soviet prestige came to an end with him having to ask the enemy for help unsurprisingly the British were like well no and the request was conveniently leaked to the papers much to the embarrassment of the Soviet Union the tu-144 through its final passenger flight on the 1st of june 1978 but official construction didn't cease until 1983 but the story it wasn't quite done yet the early 90s with their Thor in Cold War sentiment saw a t14 for used by NASA as a way to test a potential second generation of supersonic airliners the final tu-144 flew 27 times close to Moscow during the short program which ended in 1999 the tu-144 is now almost a forgotten aircraft Concorde whose service stretched until 2003 completely overshadowed the Soviet plane indeed it's easy to look at it as one of Aviation's great failures however not all mega projects have the luxury of becoming a success I mean the very nature of innovation means that we must encounter numerous failures yes it was essentially thrown together as a ridiculous act of prestige and probably should have never climbed into the skies but the sheer audacity and drive to do it makes it one of the most extraordinary successful failures that we have ever seen so I really hope you found that video interesting it ends the kind of two-parter on Concorde and the triple a plane if you did like it please do hit thumbs up below if you've got any other ideas for sort of two-parters like these where we look at - sort of similar but also very different things please let me know in the comments below I'd love to hear from you I do like read the comments like put those guys suggestions into actions so yeah let me know in the comments below and thank you for watching [Music] [Music]
