The second jetliner of the world, the Tupolev Tu-104, allowed for the possibility of the first supersonic plane in the world Tu-144 to take to the skies. Photo Credit: WikipediaAlthough the Soviet Union was mired in swashbuckling bureaucracy before its dissolution into Russia, there were a lot of Engineering marvels it produced. The first dog to make it to space was a USSR-ian, and so was the first person, the first spacewalker, and much more. Despite such a brilliant track record, the Tupolev Tu-104 might rue over the fact that it wasn’t the first but the second commercial jetliner in history.
When the Tupolev Tu-104 stretched skywards for the very first time in 1955, it became the standard bearer for jetliners in the communist faction. There is a strong case to be made that it (as does science so regularly) became a transnational icon for the global civil jet. It might be plausibly argued that the Tupolev Tu-16 jet bomber, which first took flight in 1952, was the precursor to the Tu-104.
The history of commercial aviation in the USSR would be shaped in innumerable ways after the introduction of the Tupolev Tu-104.
Interesting facts about the Tupolev Tu-104
- Design History: The Tupolev Tu-104 was the Soviet Union’s first jet-powered airliner. It was developed by Tupolev Design Bureau, which was named after the brilliant aviator Andrei Tupolev in the mid-1950s and made its maiden flight in 1955.
- Groundbreaking Design: Next only to the British de Havilland Comet, the Tu-104 was the world’s second jet-powered airliner to enter regular service. It was dotted with a swept-wing design and housed turbojet engines on pylons beneath its wings.
- First continuous commercial Jet (of the USSR): The Tu-104 was the first jet airliner to carry passengers on scheduled routes as it took to the skies between Prague and Moscow. The Soviet national airline Aeroflot introduced the Tu-104 into service on September 15, 1956.
- High Speed: The Tu-104 was capable of reaching a maximum speed of around 950 kilometers per hour. In comparison, the speed of sound is 1234 km/ hr.
- Significant Range: The Tu-104 had a range of approximately 2000-3000 kilometers depending upon the combination of its payload and fuel. Nonetheless, it was well-suited for domestic and international flights within the Eastern Bloc.
- Political Symbolism: The Tu-104 was a beacon of Soviet engineering prowess and was adept at competing with Western aircraft.
- International Perception: As the de Havilland Comet faced some technical issues, the Tu-104 was initially met with skepticism by the Western aviation community.
- Fatality: The Tu-104 has been reported to have taken the lives of more than 900 passengers, though not all the errors were mechanical. Human (piloting) errors have also been amidst the count.
- Passenger Capacity: The Tu-104 could carry 50-80 passengers, which was a decent number considering how well it connected the Soviet Union to its surrounding countries.
- Influence on Future Designs: The Tu-104 led to the developments of the Tu-134 and Tu-154, making way for futuristic aircraft designs.
Tupolev Tu-104
Where would international flying airplanes be without the technological marvels that propelled aviation forward during the wars? Post World War II, governments recognized planes as a mode of transport that, apart from being futuristic, allowed the possibility of delivery in a relatively shorter space of time and met the demands of the travel business. Fast forward to today, and the world of jets is a norm, a status quo.
Modern Jets, like the Tupolev Tu-104, are reliable, safe, and cheap. If you’re to put them in parallel with piston engines, their enormous thrusts are something the piston engines would struggle to catch up to.
The Earliest Days of the Tupolev-104
Tupolev was a successor to the Soviet Aerospace Design Bureau which was founded in 1922. He had overseen the production of nearly 18,000 aircraft in Russia, including the Soviet’s first commercial jet airliner- Tupolev Tu-104, and the world’s second supersonic passenger jet aircraft- Tupolev Tu-144.
With a country as vast as the Soviet Union that stretched across a total of 10 time zones, one might plausibly argue that a jetliner should have been the norm, not an exception in this part of the world. When the first commercial jet de Havilland Comet, wasn’t operating due to the fear of safety concerns from 1956 to 1958, the Tupolev was the solitary jetliner in the skies.
The earliest competitor of Tupolev Tu-104: De Havilland
De Havilland, the highly innovative British-made aircraft, will forever be cemented in the history of aviation as the world’s first jet airliner as it commenced its first flight on May 2, 1952. It was faster than, and flew higher in comparison to, a propeller aircraft. It was much quieter and smoother too. Its jet engines were tucked neatly behind its stylish, blended wings.
But despite all the glitz and the glam to go along with the brilliant engineering, de Havilland’s future was jeopardized– thanks largely to two accidents. These were caused by metal fatigue that led to the bursting of the fuselage as it was flying. Winston Churchill, the charismatic leader of Britain, forbade de Havilland to take to the skies until they got around and fixed this problem.
This came as a wonderful opportunity for the USSR as it was always looking to flaunt its technical prowess and gain an edge over the democratic world. Churchill’s ban also meant that the USSR would become one of the first countries with a carrier.
Tu-104’s journey before entering into service
Before the advent of jetliners such as Tupolev Tu-104, Aeroflot was wracked with problems such as the incompetence-cum-unreliability of piston engines, a discernible rise in the cost of maintaining an aircraft, time-consuming flights- all of which culminated in the reduction of profits for airlines.
This vacated space for an aircraft with higher performance. And along came the modification of the Tu-16 ‘Badger’ jet bomber into the Tu-104. Tupolev Tu-104 retained a lot of the design features of the Tu-16, ranging from its wings, engines, power plant, plumage, and tail surfaces. But despite such similarities, the Tu-104 had a significantly wider, pressurized fuselage and was commodious enough for 50 passengers.
3 of the biggest features that were supposed to take the Tu-104 to greater heights were:
- The 25.000 and 30.000 flight hours it could operate for
- Capacity of accommodating 50-80 passengers
- A speed that was around 300 km/hr less than the speed of sound
The initial design of the Tupolev Tu-104 was that of a 50-seater aircraft that could be extended to 70 seats. After the USSR approved the operation of a jetliner, the respective authorities decided that it be designated as the Tu-16P.
Ultimately it was decided that the aircraft be assigned the number 104 with the number “4” signifying a passenger aircraft. A few examples of the popular passenger aircraft in the USSR with the number 4 at the end were the Tupolev Tu-144, the first commercial supersonic aircraft of the USSR, the Tupolev Tu-154, which once witnessed the horrible crash in Smolensk, and other variants that emerged out of the Tu-104 such as Tu-124, Tu-134, and Tu-154.
Confirmations of the Tu-104’s success
In two years since its inception, the Tu-104 was ready for its first test flights. The tests were performed by Captain Y.T. Alasheev and his first officer B.M. Timoshenko in 1955. The confirmation of a good design and luxuriousness satisfied the council of ministers in the USSR, which led to the approval of the production of as many as 201 Tu-104s in aggregate.
Photo Credit: www.flightglobalimages.com
Tupolev Tu-104 expands its wings with passengers
September 15, 1956, was the Golden Day for the Soviet Aviation Industry as its first carrier made its debut in the skies. It was on the domestic Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route that the first of Tupolev’s revenue-generating services operated.
To give you a perspective on how speed-efficient it was: it cut down on the flight duration to 7 hours and 40 minutes. Contrast this with the propeller-powered Ilyushin Il-14, which had a flight time of 13 hours and 50 minutes on the same route.
The wider and pressurized cabin of the Tu-104 was also a great step forward in terms of passenger comfort. It was qualities like these that allowed the Aeroflot to develop as the flag carrier’s go-to fleet. Within a year of the beginning of its operations, Tu-104 was taking passengers to and from the UK, Denmark, Belgium, and Prague, and even to India and China in Asia.
Other nations follow the Example of the Tu-104
Tu-104 also became the flag carrier of The Czech Republic. It entered services in 1957 and made it along routes to Moscow, Paris, and Brussels. The Czech Republic purchased four brand-new and two used Tu-104 units. That could carry 81 passengers each. CSA, the abbreviation for Czechoslovak Airlines, operated the Prague-Moscow route exclusively with the TU-104A variant. In doing so, it went down in the history books as the world’s first carrier to serve a route solely with jetliners.
Popularity of Tupolev Tu-104
Tupolev Tu-104 was the go-to resort for Aeroflot during its operations in the 1960s and 1970s. Official reports have it that approximately one-third of air passengers who made it across the USSR chose to board the Tupolev Tu-104.
Just shy of two and a half decades in operation, the Tu-104 fleet clocked in 2 million flight hours– flights that were more than six hundred thousand in number, serving (in round figures) 100 million passengers.
Despite the capaciousness of accommodating only 50 passengers in its earliest designs, the Tupolev Tu-104’s later variants could house up to double this figure.
Tu-104 saw a handful of variants which included:
- Tu-104A: This is a 70-seater aircraft with improved engines and passenger capacity. Eighty units of these were manufactured.
- Tu-104B: Facilitated with a stretched fuselage, a novel Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojets, and a capacity to house 100 passengers, the first Tu-104B (production of 94 of these followed) hit the skies in the route between Moscow and Saint Petersburg on April 15, 1959.
- Tu-104E: The Tupolev Tu-104 E was fitted with RD-16-15 engines; the new Tu-104E offered better fuel efficiency and higher performance.
- TU-104G: The Tu-104 G was designed as a commuter for high-profile federal government authorities.
How was the interior of the Tu-104?
To get a passenger airline running, passenger seats, baggage compartments, sides, etc., should be optimized for a great customer experience. Tupolev Tu-104 did take these matters into consideration. Passengers were offered comfortable seats and served delectable meals to go along with beverages. Other facilities were, but not limited to, air conditioning system, cabin radio, lighting salons, etc.
The initial version of the Tu-104 had 29 airframes and could accommodate 50 passengers. Tu-104A, on the other hand, was commodious enough for 70, while the Tu-104B and the Tu-104V were 115 seaters. The former also had a new radio and navigational equipment, while the Tu-104SH had two versions of Navigator trainer. The variant Tu-104D was equipped with two sleeper cabins in the front and 39-seat cabins in the aft.
Cockpit
A modern aircraft’s cockpit is an information house in its own right. It gives the aircraft all the necessary readings and bearings to make the flight possible. But it would be naive to assume that the Tu-104’s cockpit had the sophistication of the modern jet’s cockpit.
The instrument panel equipped with indicators and electromechanical controls was well within the reach of the pilots. They were in front of the pilots, in the Tu-104’s walls. Pilots obtained the preliminary information from their external environment as the TCAS system for avoidance of mid-air collisions wasn’t devised yet, and neither was the IFR.
The downfall of Tupolev Tu-104
The career of Tupolev Tu-104 was marred with controversies that came about with an unusually high number of crashes. Despite being a futuristic concept, the Tu-104, especially in terms of passenger safety, couldn’t hold a candle against its Western counterparts. The first fatality came in 1958, and until its retirement in 1981, it had already seen more than 1100 fatalities.
Tu-104 was a lugubrious aircraft whose unresponsive flying controls coupled with poor wing design made it susceptible to stalling. And that too with little-to-no warning. To get around the Tu-104’s propensity to stall and pitch up violently before the stall, pilots would often approach landing at speeds above the recommended approach speed. And this, in turn, would, in time, compound to other mechanical problems.
The fatal Tu-104 accident at Moscow prompted the national airline Aeroflot to retire the type in March 1979. 59 people were killed in the crash and it was also found that the maximum take-off weight had been exceeded. Despite the end of the Tu-104s in civilian service, they still found refuge in the operations of the Soviet military. But even the military operations were not bound to last too long.
In February 1981, a Tupolev Tu-104A stalled during its takeoff from Pushkin Airport. The aircraft, which was headed for Khabarovsk, crashed 20 meters southwest of the runway and took the lives of all 50 occupants. This included 28 high-ranking Soviet officials who were returning to Vladivostok from Leningrad after some routine training. After this crash and burn, the Tupolev Tu-104, which was limited to military use, was abandoned altogether by the USSR.
Legacy of Tupolev Tu-104
For an aircraft that was produced in the 1950s, production of over 200 units is quite a staggering achievement for Tupolev Tu-104. Given that it was the world’s first country carrier and the second jetliner in history, its achievements have become more impressive.
But it can’t be argued that the Tupolev Tu-104‘s road to the jet age wasn’t studded with some glories and bitter pangs. An aircraft that transported more than 90 million passengers is quite an impressive number, something boast-worthy, but given more than 1000 fatalities and 16 plane crashes, is a number that might have stalled the advancements of any aircraft that was in passenger operation.
It did inspire a generation of other variants that included the Tupolev Tu-124, Tupolev tu-134, and Tupolev Tu-154.