The Tu-144 is a
supersonic transport aircraft, very similar to the
Concorde. It has a similar
delta wing with the engines arranged in pairs as on Concorde, though the Tu-144 engines are closer to the center and longer than Concorde's, and it has the same type of hydraulic
droop nose (also seen this called a drop-nose, I'm not sure which is correct) to improve runway visibility. The main visible difference is that two
canard wings just aft of the
cockpit, which are absent from the Concorde. There is some evidence that leaked blueprints of the Concorde were used in the design of Tu-144.
The Tu-144 could carry 140 passengers, cruised at
Mach 2.35 (faster than Concorde's cruise speed of Mach 2.02), and had a range of 6500km (4093 mi). Its first flight was in 1968, and regular passenger service began in 1977. Although it was designed to compete with the Concorde, no airlines outside of the
USSR bought the Tu-144, mostly due to a spectacular crash during a demonstration at the
Paris air show in 1973. The cause of the crash was
airframe overstress caused by a rapid maneuver to avoid crashing into a French
mirage fighter photographing the demonstration. Neither the russian pilots nor the audience at the airshow knew that the
mirage was in the area.
There are at least two surviving Tu-144s listed
for sale on the internet, one of them in flyable condition. That aircraft was used in joint scientific testing between the
Russian space agency and
NASA. Good photos of the Tu-144 are available on
www.airliners.net