Tu-144 question

The Inspector · **Posted:** Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:58 am

When Belenko flew a Mig 25 to japan in '75 (?) our (Western types) designers and engineers were astounded to discover that the Mig bureau would use a piece of Titanium only where it was really needed for the strength or heat resistance, and the rest of the assembly was either aluminum or steel while our wizards maintained that the entire thing be 100% Ti.

The potato field analogy still holds, look @ the gear and wheels on an SU-27, strickly phone pole stout and wheels that look like they'd be right at home on a medium sized FARMALL tractor, mud blocker doors for inlets that only open after the nose wheel is off the ground, engines that can eat rocks and big chunks without FODing out.

skydaddy61 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:58 am **Posts:** 208

Yup. Plus vacuum-tube radars that'd survive an EMP pulse.

Just because they're communists doesn't make them stupid.

skippyscage · **Posted:** Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:24 pm

michaelharadon wrote:

In a conversation with Dassault engineers at the Paris Air Show in 80 or 81, they mentioned to me that the Concorde team was aware that the Russians were intent on stealing their blueprints so they designed a believable, but false fuel system that the Russians then copied and installed.

According to the engineers, this lead to the crash at an earlier Paris Air Show of the "Concordski".

so so wrong...

the crash was because there was a Mirage sent up to photograph the Tu-144s canards unbeknown to the Tu-144 crew during their display at Paris.

the Mirage was seen at the last moment through clouds and caused the crew of the Tu-144 to push full forward flaming out the engines (I think) and they didn't have sufficient height to re-light...

seach out the BBC documentary on the incident called "Secret History"

I love disinformation as facts....

Nathan · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:24 am

dors wrote:

One of my favorites, the TU-22M Backfire, is still operational.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M

Like this? :wink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAhWU19e ... xt_from=PL

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:11 am

skippyscage wrote:

michaelharadon wrote:

In a conversation with Dassault engineers at the Paris Air Show in 80 or 81, they mentioned to me that the Concorde team was aware that the Russians were intent on stealing their blueprints so they designed a believable, but false fuel system that the Russians then copied and installed.

According to the engineers, this lead to the crash at an earlier Paris Air Show of the "Concordski".

so so wrong...

In addition, the Tu-144 was flying BEFORE Concorde, and was on the drawing boards BEFORE Concorde. So if any copying occured, it would have been the other way around, but when NASA and Tupolev teamed up for the Tu-144 flights, the West was able to get a real good, detailed look at the airplane and the report that NASA put out basically summed up the Tu-144 as (and I'm paraphrasing) - "a whole different beast".

old iron · **Posted:** Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:45 am

There have been some comments previously on this thread:

Quote:

mig 29 / f-15 on & on. all have the lines of western technology

suggesting that the MiG-29 configuration was in part copied from the F-15.

However, the beginning of the recent trend to twin-tail fighters (yes, I am ignoring the Cutlass) was the MiG-25.

If we want to be quick to charge the Russians with plagiarism, let us be honest or at least give some fairness to them: sometimes the ideas came the other way.

Just how much the MiG-25 influenced F-15 and other twin-tail American birds I am sure will be argued, but the general lines of the MiG-25/F-15 are about as similar as some of the other examples used in this thread to imply Russian cpying of our designs.

I remember when the F-15 came out that many people thought that it was heavily influenced by the MiG-25.

Kevin.

EXPAT0149 · **Joined:** Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:44 am **Posts:** 163

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GWQQURn ... re=related
Shows the crash .

famvburg · **Joined:** Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:41 am **Posts:** 540

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

skydaddy61 wrote:

Will Ward's crew chief (MiG-17) likes to point out that the MiG17 was designed to be maintained by potato farmers, in a potato field, using only the tools you'd need to repair a potato truck.

There's some merit in that approach.

The story goes that in the 1960's NASA spent about a million bucks developing a ballpoint pen with a pressurized ink barrel that would write in zero-g, yet not leak all over the place.

The Soviet cosmonauts used pencils.

famvburg · **Joined:** Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:41 am **Posts:** 540

I've read in several publications that when the MiG-25 was first seen, it was believed to have influenced by the NA A-5. The A-5 was even originally designed with twin fins.

old iron wrote:

There have been some comments previously on this thread:

Quote:

mig 29 / f-15 on & on. all have the lines of western technology

suggesting that the MiG-29 configuration was in part copied from the F-15.

However, the beginning of the recent trend to twin-tail fighters (yes, I am ignoring the Cutlass) was the MiG-25.

If we want to be quick to charge the Russians with plagiarism, let us be honest or at least give some fairness to them: sometimes the ideas came the other way.

Just how much the MiG-25 influenced F-15 and other twin-tail American birds I am sure will be argued, but the general lines of the MiG-25/F-15 are about as similar as some of the other examples used in this thread to imply Russian cpying of our designs.

I remember when the F-15 came out that many people thought that it was heavily influenced by the MiG-25.

Kevin.

Warbird Information Exchange

Tu-144 question

Who is online