kc Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 This website gives some info on what is now thought to be the real cause of the 1973 Konkordski crash The French don't seem to come out this too well! I have not seen this reason before so maybe it will interest other forum members too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Tarling Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 Interesting, but nothing new there that I can see. Thanks for posting it anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Christy Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 I seem to remember hearing the Mirage story - probably in the documentary mentioned in the article. I was also in the video-tape control room at Television Centre when the footage of the crash came in. We could barely believe what we were seeing..... However, IIRC, whilst the Russian spies got hold of much of the technical details of Concorde, which they the studiously ripped off, they missed one very important feature. Inside the air-intake ducts, under the wing, Concorde had a "lip" near the leading edge of the duct. As the aircraft went supersonic, this set up a shock wave across the air intake. The effect of this was to slow down the air entering the engine to subsonic speeds - essential for efficient operation of the engines! As a result, whilst Concorde only needed its afterburners for take off and supersonic transition - once through the sound barrier, they could be shut down - Konkordski needed the afterburners running all the time it was supersonic! If you thought Concorde was noisy, you should have heard the Russian version! That's why it was restricted to only going supersonic over sparsely populated Siberia, and why they never managed to sell any - even to Russian allies! I can't remember where I heard all this! It could all be "urban legend"! But no doubt someone on here will be along to confirm or dispute this story! -- Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erfolg Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 The news report of the Mirage is not new, The spying part, I think many people suspected that it had taken place. Am I surprised, not really, I imagine many businesses as well sovereign states get up to it, friend and foe alike. The Russian aircraft only flying internally, again, not really that surprising. Just considering Concord, there were precious few routes it could fly due to noise issues. If you think back, the USA could be argued to have done its best in stopping the aircraft flying in and out of their airports, There was certainly no chance that it would fly over the USA or Europe at above Mach1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Olsen 1 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 While the Russians would like to blame the whole thing on the Mirage, the fact remains that the Tupelov broke up in mid air, without having actually collided with anything else. Should an aircraft that can fly at over Mach 1 be structurally weak enough to break up at a much lower speed when manoeuvering? It is now known that much of the airframe was made by milling from large slabs of aluminium, and apparently these were prone to developing cracks. This was one of the reasons that they were eventually withdrawn from service. Milling parts from solid is a process that is used in aircraft, but you have to be able to produce large slabs without flaws. The talk of spying is much over rated. No doubt the Russians did gather as much information as they could, but despite the external similarities, the internal design, particularly the structure, was quite different. The external shape is pretty much determined by the aerodynamics. Even with subsonic designs, all large passenger transports tend to look much the same, apart from earlier experiments with putting engines in different places. Even if they had a full set of drawings, the different production facilities and the different sources of parts would require a major redesign anyway. If you look around on Utube there are some good videos about all this. One of the Russian guys said that they were actually about 15 to 20 years ahead of having the capability to design and build such an aircraft successfully. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leighfield Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 As I recall, one of the Tu144s was bought by the US and being flown there on a particular development programme a few years back. Does anyone else remember anything about this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leighfield Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Found it. It was a NASA funded programme in which the last Tu144 built was considerably up-rated with improved engines, American instrumentation and flown by US test pilots. The programme ran between 1997 and 1999, all the tests were carried out in Russia. It's an interesting read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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