What Was The First Ever Supersonic Airliner?

Because of the vital importance of ensuring that aircraft are fundamentally safe to fly, hangar building space is vital, and if additional storage for aeroplanes is needed quickly, kit builds will meet the needs and demands of either a temporary airfield or an airport expecting a spike in demand.

Hangars are essential for all times of aircraft, but they were particularly important for supersonic airliners such as Concorde, as the mechanical and engineering tolerances beyond the sound barrier are far smaller than for more conventional aircraft.

It is for this reason that only two supersonic airliners were ever made, but whilst Concorde was by far the most famous one, it was not actually the first to fly.

The Relentless Charger

The Tupolev Tu-144 had its first flight two months before Concorde did on New Year's Eve 1968, and would breach the sound barrier four months before Concorde did in June 1969.

Unlike the UK, Europe and the United States, where supersonic flight was controversial due to noise concerns, fuel consumption and issues related to flight corridors and airspace, the Soviet Union was extremely keen to have supersonic airliners to avoid week-long train journeys across Russia.

Whilst the Tu-144 looked superficially similar to Concorde with a similar double-delta wing design, the two planes were remarkably different, with the most notable superficial difference being the small canards at the front of the plane that was described as looking like a moustache.

Interestingly, the Tu-144 was actually faster and bigger than Concorde, although it was far less sophisticated. It was one of the last commercial aircraft to use a braking parachute as part of its landing and used cooling fans for air conditioning in the cabin.

Astounding Achievement And Magnificent Failure

The Tu-144 was an astonishing achievement and had it been given enough time to fully test its capabilities and ensure it was stable enough to control, it may have been even more successful than Concorde.

It would never get the chance, however. The first production Tu-144 was demonstrated at the Paris Air Show in 1973, the most prestigious event in the aviation calendar.

However, on 3rd June 1973, the plane broke apart during a test flight and crashed into the town of Goussainville, killing the entire six-person crew, as well as eight further people on the ground.

The crash confirmed the concerns of many people who were already sceptical about the Tu-144 following multiple setbacks and supersonic aeroplanes more broadly.

The Tu-144 entered commercial service in 1975 and would start to take passengers on flights between Moscow and Alma-Ata in 1977.

However, another crash on 23rd May 1977 led to the Soviet Union banning all further passenger flights using the Tu-144, and the programme would be cancelled entirely in 1983.

Across 102 total flights, the Tu-144 would experience 226 failures, 80 of which happened mid-flight, which led to the outsider perception that the plane was fundamentally unsafe.

As well as this, the deaths of two of the plane’s biggest advocates, Andrei Tupolev of the Tupolev Design Bureau in 1972 and the Minister of the USSR’s Aviation Industry in 1977, alongside the 1973 oil crisis, meant that the aircraft could not be the show of superiority the Soviet Union wanted it to be.