16 Responses to “Concordski Concorde clone”

1. miro Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 am

   TU 144 was made before Concorde so it’s hardly a ripoff! Read some history before you make your posts.

2. redwraithvienna Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am

   The TU 144 is not a rip of per se. Its the same problem as was pointed out at the Buran entry. Function dictates Form.

3. Nick Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 11:40 am

   Re Miro: Wrong - The TU-144 was FINISHED before the Concorde, but there’s plenty of evidence that blueprints and drawings were stolen/smuggled from France to the Soviet Union giving many, many ideas to the Soviet design team. However some of the design similarities are coincidental given the nature of the aircraft and what it’s meant to do.

4. tom termini Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm

   the Soviet spies ripped off a set of plans from the French/British aerospace engineers
   and built the plane
   it debuted at the Paris Airshow - a HUGe surprise to everyone
   but
   they stole the WRONG PLANS

   the british and french had figured out that the inboard engine design was inherently unstable, and in the NEXT set of designs (and on the Concord) they moved the engines
   when the russian pilots took off at the Paris Airshow, they did a high speed pass, lost control and CRASHED!

5. Bankle Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm

   Miro, are you joking? The Russians stole much of the design plans from France’s Aérospatiale during Concorde development:

   “Although the Tu-144 flew before Concorde, its development was alleged to be connected with industrial espionage against the French company Aérospatiale, which was developing Concorde. When Sergei Pavlov — officially acting as Aeroflot’s representative in Paris — was arrested in 1965, he was in possession of detailed plans of the braking system, the landing gear and the airframe of Concorde. Another agent named Sergei Fabiew, who was arrested in 1977, was believed to have obtained the entire plans of the prototype Concorde back in the mid-1960s.”

6. anti tom Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm

   It is believed it had crashed during low speed high G manoeuvring.

7. Wim Heitinga Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm

   tom termini Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
   the Soviet spies ripped off a set of plans from the French/British aerospace engineers
   they stole the WRONG PLANS

   The truth is that the French/Britons found out that plans of the Concorde were leaking to the USSR.
   When they found out who the spy was, first thought was to take him out.
   But then he would probably be replaced, without the French/Britons knowing who the new spy was (remember it was an enormous operation with hundreds of people working on it).
   So they decide to leave the man in place, and feed him wrong information.
   The rest is history…

8. redkitten Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm

   Well, according to WikiPedia where this picture is from, there were both obvious similarities AND important differences between the two planes:
   « Despite the similarity of the Tu-144 to the Franco-British supersonic aircraft, there were significant differences in the control, navigation and engine systems. The Tu-144 was in some ways a more technologically advanced aircraft, but in areas such as range, aerodynamic sophistication, braking and engine control, it lagged behind Concorde. »

   Maybe it’s a bit too easy and usual to think that Soviet engineers were retards, while they have developed many efficient projects, often finding more simple and efficient ways to make something work.

9. Windturbinist Says:
   April 22nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm

   In Soviet Russia the joke is always on YOU

10. keith Says:
    April 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 am

    сами вы пидорские клоны

11. soto Says:
    April 23rd, 2008 at 4:27 am

    But you guys are forgetting that it was joint project between the USA and Mother Russia!

12. soto Says:
    April 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 am

    P,S:

    Those of you who dont believe me, look at the tail and the flags on it!

13. tom Says:
    April 23rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm

    RE: soto
    the particular plane in the photo was used as a scientific testing bed for joint projects between russia and usa, years after the first flight, the development of tu-144 is all soviet! to meet the tight dead lines the soviets put the tu 22m ( a military airplane ) engines on the plane, the fuel efficiency was non existent and unpractical, the plane engines reached their optimum speed just as it had to slow down for landing

14. Dalex Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    SSTs were a national prestige project in the 1960’s.
    The Soviets did not have technological parity with western industry in many areas, from paints and dyes to metallurgy.
    The Tu-144, Concorde, and U.S. SST all shared similar goals and consequently have many of the same design features dictated by the nature of the aircraft.
    That being said, the lack of advanced metallurgy and computational technology meant that the Soviets were anxious to ‘crib’ (ok steal) good ideas from the West. Sometimes they Soviets did not have the manufacturing skills to take advantage of Western ideas once they got them. This lead to a number of significant differences between the Tu-144 and Concorde:

    Concorde had a more refined wing profile to give it a better compromise between supersonic cruise and low speed landing control. Eventually the last iteration of the Tu-144 overcame the primitive wing with the small canards seen in the photo.

    Concorde’s designers did figure out that two separate engine pods were better for both safety in case of engine failure, and more importantly shock wave control. The Soviets did not know of this research and did not take advantage of it.

    The Tu-144 needed longer range than Concorde for internal political reasons: What? I can fly “Mosow to London but not to Vladisvostok?”

    The cause LeBourget crash is still debatable as the “official” story changes today but the common theme is that it was not caused by any design flaw inherent to the Tu-144. The Tu-144 never lived up to it’s goals, in range, comfort or safety; the crash didn’t help its already problematic image.

    Regarding the photo: it is indeed of a Tu-144 rev. D that was leased by the NASA in the 1990s for high-speed research; all of the Concorde’s were still in use by British Airways and Air France.

    For a good read find a copy of “The Soviet S.S.T.” by Howard Moon; it is probably the definitive book on the topic.

15. Rich Says:
    July 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am

    I’ve some documentaries on the SST developments. From what I can remember the Russians had gotten the wing design wrong. The Concorde’s wings were curved for better aerodynamic performance, and russian SST’s completely flat which made it unstable at low speed, which is which they incorporated the retractable canards, which when deployed made the Concordski kinda look like a rabbit. They also said that the crash might have been caused by a French fighter which had been flying high above the Concordski. It was there for surveillance purposes and might have caused the crash when saw it and tried to avoid it… Anyways this information came from a documentary which if I remember correctly was on Wings.

16. Stanley Sandler Says:
    August 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am

    Y’all should read Dr. Howard Moon’s sseminal book on the Concordski. He describes the espionage that was indeed a part of the Soviet SST project, and gives the background of the “reverse engineering” that produced that triumph of socialism, the TU-4, a clone of the US B-29.

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