An exhibition on the Tu-144, which beat Concorde into the air by two months: design, testing and a brief airline career. Final days on view.
On 31 December 1968 the Tu-144 took off two months ahead of Concorde and became the first passenger aircraft to break the sound barrier. The exhibition brings together the drooping nose section, the retractable canard foreplane and cabin seats from the first production series.
A separate section covers the NK-144 engine and the range problem that decided the aircraft’s fate. Flight-test documents, including material from the joint NASA flight programme of 1996–1998, are shown for the first time.
For context the display includes a MiG-21 interceptor — contemporary of Tupolev’s first supersonic studies — and the strategic Tu-95, whose propellers remain the fastest in production aviation. The exhibition is closing: its final day is nine days away.
