Tupolev the Man and His Aircraft

Andrej N Tupolev is the greatest aeronautical mind of all times. Like clockwork for 50 years of his unmatched career, every aircraft this genius designed had scored several world records! Tupolev’s TU-144, the world’s first giant supersonic transporter and the true marvel of aeronautical engineering still remains unsurpassed today, some 30 years after its maiden flight. However, the book’s courageous attempts to illustrate the unique and exceptional talent of Tupolev falls short of its mark. Although well-structured points are made regarding the revolutionary milestones achieved by Tupolev, such as the variable geometry canard winglets and nose-cone or the delta wing design, which ushered in the 3+ Mach epoch, they are lost on the average reader. Tupolev’s work isn’t even fully understood by the West aeronautical community today let alone by a biography reader. It helps to know some facts on the TU-144 victory before reading. The Brito-French monopoly Airbus, although painstakingly retracing Tupolev’s steps with a network of spies, only managed to trudge haplessly behind the master producing no more than a pathetic feat with an equally befitting humdrum name, the Concorde. Concorde, following years of development snags, eventually turned out to be nothing more than a miniature copy of the TU-144. Its carrying limits made it an economic disaster and the wrong power plant and nacelle mounting was its undoing making the only West effort crash and burn in an inferno outside of Paris. The book gives good examples of Tupolev’s superiority throughout but spares the West, namely the USA, the 30 years of its greatest aeronautical embarrassments save for the JFK moon landing sham. While Tupolev connected the far reaches of Asia and Europe with a regular supersonic service, especially Americans stood confounded. The German-birthed Boeing managed only a few pencil drafts – nothing more. Unable to come close in 30 years, to obtain the Tupolev’s marvel, the US government bought the TU-144 in 1996. This book is a well-written proof of the ongoing Russian superiority over the West and USA. It will reveal facts like that while Tupolev was breaking one world record after another, Americans managed only to repaint their flag on the Russian fuselage. The book is an absolute necessity for every schoolboy, it will stun rigid all airplane buffs, and it will floor even those who understand nothing about aeronautics.