SOVIET SUPERSONIC: A TECHNOPOLITICAL DISASTER

• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Collection: Declassified Articles from Studies in Intelligence: The IC’s Journal for the Intelligence Professional
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0000620493
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2014
• Case Number: F-2013-02322
• Publication Date: December 1, 1984

Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493TITLE: Soviet Supersonic: A Technopolitical DisasterAUTHOR:(b)(3)(c)VOLUME: 28 ISSUE: Winter YEAR: 1984Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 0006204934pproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493INTELLIGENCEA collection of articles on the historical, operational, doctrinal, and theoretical aspects of intelligence.All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed in Studies in Intelligence are those ofthe authors. They do not necessarily reflect official positions or views of the CentralIntelligence Agency or any other US Government entity, past or present. Nothing in thecontents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government endorsement of anarticle's factual statements and interpretations.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493A tuft of golden plumage(b)(3)(n)SOVIET SUPERSONIC: A TECHNOPOLITICAL DISASTER(b)(3)(c)In the Russian fable of the Firebird, the Tsarevitch becomes intoxi-cated with a bewitching birdlike creature who dances in the wilder-ness. He tries to capture her secrets, but comes away bearing only atuft of her rich golden plumage. The Firebird, the tantalizingbeauty, escapes, her elusive mysteries intact, having stolen theb 1) golden apples that provide the sustenance of the Russian realm. . . .()((b)(3)(n) analysis of the USSR's supersonic airlinerproject provides insights into Soviet institutional interaction, elite psychology,and the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet research and development. The TU144's origins can be traced to 1961; its end was announced in the summer of1984. Many elements of this twenty-three year development program remainobscure.1(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)Obscure Genesis: 1961 - 1971The first impression affecting an analyst approaching the Soviet SST storyis the dramatic imbalance of materials available for its first and second dec-ades. While the final days of the Soviet SST project can be reconstructed in  great detail, its beginnings canno' 7(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)\ The TU 144 story in the 1960s mustbe reconstructed from contemporary press commentary and flashbacks fromlater reporting. The critical questions remain:? Why did the USSR follow the West into supersonic transport devel-opment?? Which Soviet institutions played leading motivational roles in bring-ing this about?The atmospherics of the last years of Nikita Khrushchev's rule were rad-ically different in spirit from those which have followed. Khrushchev was anadventurer, sincerely hopeful that Soviet technological prowess?revealed(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049323Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Supersonicmost dramatically by the advent of Sputnik in 1957?would enable the Sovietsto surpass the West by 1980. Soviet space successes seemed to accredit theSoviet elite's technocratic optimism. An airliner of unprecedented speed toconquer the USSR's unparalleled distances must have seemed the wave of thefuture.(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)This Soviet -crash- program, which attained dramatic early results, was afirst-class technical achievement. It had been accomplished chiefly by mobi-lizing the entire Soviet aerospace establishment behind Tupolev, by commis-sion of the Council of Ministers. It is a salient example of the Soviet economy'sability to deliver quickly by concentrating all resources on a given design goal.Only later did the cost of this strategem become apparent.For example, the development approach to the SST was that of the-Great Leap Forward.- There was not time to develop sub-systems at a cor-rect, safe rate and then integrate them into the grand design. Rather, all designcomponents were developed simultaneously at maximum speed, which led tocorner cutting and some high-risk technical solutions. This produced earlyresults for the record books, as the higher party leadership doubtless desired,but it did not deliver reliable components for a project as teChnically ticklish asa supersonic airliner,(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)The trouble-plagued history of the struggle to place the TU 144 intocommercial service may be traced to the Central Committee's decision toconcentrate on a record breaker. Fourteen years of dogged development, sys-tem modification, and redesigns never compensated for an inappropriateproject strategy. Subsequent efforts to put the aircraft right were not aided by24s.F-eftEfiApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)SupersonicApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493?5-ecKET2(b)(3)(n)the fact that Tupolev's rival design bureaus were forced, for policy reasons, toact as its unacknowledged subcontractors.The priority accorded the SST is shown by comparing its progress overthe Backfire bomber with which it s are(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)I ? '4 -i?It eventually became apparent that the Backfire Mach IT h(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)s are more wi t e t an its engines. Target speed, probable weight, and,probably, landing gear design were similar.(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)As aerospace was the first priority in Soviet technical espionage in the1960s, and the SST was the first priority project of the sector, the TU 144quickly benefitted from data collected bligence?services-(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)In the case of the SST, an analogousproject was proceeding in the West in an atmosphere of high publicity; thismade matters much easier.Something of the magnitude of this activity is revealed by General deGaulle's personal authorization of the expulsion in 1965 of Sergei Pavlov, thensenior Aeroflot representative in Paris. Pavlov spent much of his time attempt-ing to penetrate SudAviation facilities near Toulouse to learn the secrets of theConcorde. In this, Pavlov appears to have been successful. His expulsion didnot damage his career; he rose eventually to become Deputy Minister of CivilAviation.Pavlov recruited two French Communist Party members working at Tou-louse to obtain blueprints and plans. At the trial of two Czechoslovakian priestsin March 1966, arrested near the factory, one of the clandestine transmissionroutes of Concorde data was revealed. Microfilmed plans had been rolled up intoothpaste tubes by -tourists- on the Ostend-Warsaw Express for forwardingto Moscow.(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)This is in part a tribute to the efficacyof the gumshoe developed by Soviet intelligence services, whereby Sovietdelegations visiting Western machine shops and production lines wore shoeswith super-soft and absorbent soles designed to pick up and retain metal filingsand samples from the floor.(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049325Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)SupersonicTechnology theft also took cruder forms, even in the spotlight of detente.  (b)(1)(b)(3)(n)ne soviets were known to have problems casting blades. Im-portunate Soviet officials were told these parts could not be sold. Shortly there-after, most of the exhibit, including the uniquely perfect compressor casting,was stolen.The Soviet SST made its debut at Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow, on 21May 1971. As the leadership had endowed the aircraft with a priority overdefense projects, it was almost without precedent and indicative of Sovietoptimism that the public was permitted to inspect this aircraft, embodyingSoviet state-of-art technology.More suprisingly, the leadership decided to fly the aircraft to Western airshows where it would be subject to detailed scouting by Western technicians.The TU 144's presence at the Hamburg Air Show in 1972, and the Paris showsof 1971, 1973, 1975, and 1977, provided opportunities for detailed inspectionof the latest Soviet technology. This put Soviet aerospace development andproduction techniques into fresh focus. Frank peer exchanges between Sovietand Western pilots, engineers, and designers yielded information and insightsextending beyond the SST proper. Politburo pride in this superlative Soviettechnical achievement overrode normal Soviet preoccupations with secrecyand security.Hidden CostsIn the context of the several long interruptions in SST testing?from 1January to 30 March 1969, from 1 November 1969 to 1 April 1970, and from12 November 1970 to 1 April 1971?the decision to go public with the craftreflects a certain bravado. The Soviets in this instance were breaking withprecedent in not copying the West, but carrying out development in parallel.For once, the Soviets were toiling alongside the West at the technologicalfrontier. Western technical secrets frequently could not be exploited becauseof inadequate Soviet materiel and technique as well as inability of Sovietengineers to decipher Western technical data. This undercut extensive Soviettechnical espionage. Therefore, high level pressure to develop the SST at topspeed at all costs had a counterproductive effect.Soviet engineers themselves?including chief designer Alexei Tupolev?subsequently complained that concentration of Soviet resources on the SSTblighted more economically justifiable programs, notably the wide-bodyjetliners that the USSR badly needed for the 1970s and 1980s. The first ofthese, the IL-86, was supposed to serve the 1980 Olympics, but was not avail-able in quantity.Record Breaker Goes PublicThe first appearance of the TU 144 in the West, at Paris in June 1971,took place the week following the US Senate vote, 49 to 47, not to underwrite26Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Supersonic (b)(3)(n)the development of an American SST. The Senate vote disquieted Soviet SSTnrnnonpntc(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)Tupolev engineersthat Alexei lupoiev was the chief motivator and lobbyist for the SST project,and indicates that as early as 1971, Tupolev was well aware that the ruinousconcentration of Soviet aerospace assets on the SST had stalled more necessaryprojects.Bottom, side, and auxiliary views of theTU 144, with dimensions. Top view of nosesection shows canards extended.Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049327Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)SupersonicAt Orly, though the TU 144 was carefully guarded by the Soviets, West-ern experts were able to approach the aircraft and observe signs of operationalstress. The Soviets obviously took a casual approach to presentation: poppedrivets, missing bolts, and wrinkled, heat-stressed skin were apparent. Thethreadbare tires, often with cord showing, provided eloquent testimony thatSoviet tire technology could not meet the challenge of 121 tons repeatedlylanding at 175-180 miles per hour.Numerous meetings of Western and Soviet aerospace specialists from1971 on revealed the contrasting personalities of chief test pilot Eduard Elyanand chief designer Tupolev. Elyan, visibly contemptuous of his accompanyingsecurity goon, was delighted with an opportunity to sit in an F-16 cockpit, andwas personally solicitous of a US test pilot who had recently crashed. Elyan,whose "Hero of the Soviet Union" medal denoted a survivor of three crashesor near misses, asked whether the American had back pains, as he, Elyan, hadsuffered for months as a consequence of a wheels-up landing.Tupolev was a less sympathetic, if more complex personality. Warming tohis role as TU 144 flack, he retailed official howlers even before audiences whoknew better. He told one group of visiting engineers that the TU 144 was "17percent quieter than Concorde." Tupolev had his own reasons for backstop-ping the mendacious official line. His own father had been arrested by Stalin'ssecret police in 1937 as a "wrecker," in a bizarre backwash of the Great Purge,and confessed immediately to avoid torture. Thereafter, Tupolev pere andmost of his chief engineers designed aircraft in a unique Soviet institution, the"sharashka," or prison bureau.Western delegations began to visit the TU 144 remote assembly plant atVoronezh. The first known pilgrimage of this type was undertaken by thepresident of Aerospatiale in 1971. Later US visitors were impressed by Soviettitanium skin work, in particular the practice of winding the one-piece wingskin 360 degrees around its spars. This technical advancement jarred with thedensity of machine tools at the facility, said to be five times those found at ananalogous US facility?reminiscent of American conditions in the 1930s.Whether this reflected a Soviet fetish for the machine shop and/or back-wardness in Soviet forging technology was unclear, but intensive "hoggingout" (machining from the solid) of titanium ingots produced a useful yield ofonly ten to twenty percent. The considerable waste from this process was soldto US scrap dealers. Later scrap analysis indicated that the TU 144 shared atleast one component with the IL-86.Juxtaposition of the modern with the primitive was capped by an auto-mated chicken coop adjacent to the TU 144 assembly area; the Soviets showedthis off as an example of Tupolev's "diversification."Elsewhere, Soviet standards were notable by their absence. US productionengineers were astounded to learn that Russians had no term for "reliabilityengineer." "Life cycle testing," whereby components were tested to destruc-tion, likewise had no place in the Soviet lexicon or experience. Western exec-utives visiting Aeroflot were appalled at the lack of any mechanism to trackoperating costs, and the absence of a balance sheet.28 (b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Supersonic _SEC2ET-7Final Product and First Crash(b)(3)(n)The -production- TU 144 which appeared at the 1973 Paris Air Showdiffered dramatically from the earlier prototypes. Had it been developed inthe West, it probably would have been assigned a new design number. Chiefdesigner Tupolev later noted that the new version was ten percent longer thanthe prototype, with seven percent more wing area. More tellingly, the winghad been completely redesigned into a -double delta- configuration, supplant-ing the curved leading edges of the prototype. Two canards?short stub wingsthat swung out from the nose?aided quick lift-off, at the cost of increasedweight and drag. The four NK-144 turbofans were moved outward from theiroriginal placement in the lower fuselage to the wing roots. The landing gearwas moved down from the engine nacelles and its geometry was extensivelyrevised, from three- to two-axle configuration.TU 144B in flight at Paris Air Show, 23 May 1973.(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049329?SiettETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)SupersonicIn short, the -production- TU 144 was almost a new aircraft. A Westernengineer/designer who had walked through the prototype the previous yeardescribed the 1973 version as a -complete redesign,- with a new wing-enginerelationship. The large landing gear housing was eliminated and the fuselagecross-section had been changed from an oval to a full circle. The tail sectionhad been lengthened twenty-five feet. The modifications reflected a seriousSoviet re-examination of the TU 144 after it had flown only two hundredhours. In sum, the TU 144 now resembled the Concorde more closely. TheSoviets by now were troubled that the Concorde project had overtaken theirown.This TU 144, the second of the -production- batch, ended its debut in theWest spectacularly by exploding in mid-air on the last day of the Paris AirShow, 3 June 1973.The post-mortem involved examination of the smallest details. One USexpert described the disposition of a missing bolt in the left tail section. An-other testified that the color of the metal used in the fuselage had changed atthe point where the tail section had separated from the fuselage in mid-air.Soviet test pilots later confirmed the observation by a Western engineer thatthe TU 144 had no -G leveling--there were no overrides on the controls thatprevented it from being maneuvered and stressed beyond the structural limitsof the airframe.(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)But this detailed technical analysis was beside the point: the crash wasrooted in political and psychological pressures, not technical failure. As Sovietexperts explained to Western test pilots in 1974, the crew at Paris in 1973 wasunder incredible official pressure to make the commercial debut of the pro-duction TU 144 as dramatic as possible. Confronting the Concorde was in linewith the Soviet elite's -catch up- policy. The TU 144 maneuvering over theairport that final weekend of the air show, interesting to the average observer,was described by an expert eyewitness as -spectacular . . . risky and over-done.- The huge aircraft was thrown into perilously sharp turns at minimumspeed and altitude, for maximum show effect.The aircrew, obeying orders to make the aircraft's debut as spectacular aspossible, paid with their lives. According to Viktor Suvorov, the Politburo tookan intense interest in the crash. GRU films of the crash were rushed to Moscowfor viewing by the Polituro the next morning, where the inquest featuredevidence from Tupolev, his deputies, and Soviet intelligence agencies. TheGRU, which had twenty films of the crash, was reportedly begged by theKGB's Andropov for -just one- reel to illustrate his report, and was turneddown. Leadership complicity in the crash found cathartic expression through acollective front page obituary in Pravda which announced a posthumousshower of decorations for the heroes. The fate of five French citizens, killedwhen tons of incandescent metal rained down upon their village, was notmentioned.30 J.C.RETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)SupersonicApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493srgett.E1(b)(3)(n)The immediate cause of the disaster was that the pilots put the TU 144into a steep climb immediately after a pass over the runway. The afterburners,which earlier had been observed to stutter and sometimes catch only on thethird or fourth engine rev-up, cut in unevenly. This overstressed the airframe,designed for fast, level flight rather than abrupt low speed test maneuvers. It isbelieved that the noseplanes, or canards, then disintegrated, the pieces pene-trating the twenty wing fuel tanks and possibly being sucked into the fifty-nine-inch diameter inlets of the engines, which subsequently exploded. Thenose of the aircraft was thrown forward and down and the tail backward andup. The conflagration was reminiscent of the Hindenburg thirty-six years be-fore; it, too, blew apart in the air, a pioneering form of air transportThis drawing depicts the beginning of the endfor the TU 144B, Number 2, in the air nearParis on 3 June 1973. Pieces of the disintegrat-ing nose planes, or canards (outlined in originalposition) were sucked down by the vacuum ofthe wings to be ingested by the engines and/orpierce the complex of fuel tanks in the wings(insert).(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049331Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Supersonicembodying the hopes of a totalitarian technocracy and dying a fiery publicdeath.There were at least two inquests; in neither case were the findings publi-cized. The Soviet inquest, probably carried out jointly by the Ministries of AirIndustry and Civil Aviation, assigned cause of the crash to -pilot error- or-human factors.- TU 144s in the USSR were grounded for some months andproduction at the Voronezh factory was halted. Resumption of flight testingafter eight months with apparently unmodified aircraft indicates that the air-craft itself was cleared from the Soviet point of view. As late as 1977, chiefdesigner Tupolev ? and Soviet test pilots refused to discuss the crash or thesubsequent investigation, claiming that it was -still under investigation."The French Concorde evaluation group also studied the crash. TheFrench found that the pilot had gone into a stall and used too much after-burner to compensate, overstressing the engine and breaking loose the canards.These findings were not made public: the crash of the TU 144 cast a shadow onthe Concorde project, now under political pressure because of its great cost,high fuel consumption, and perceived environmental impact.Soviet Approaches to France and the UKThe TU 144 appeared at four Paris air shows, never at the British coun-terpart at Farnborough. Following the visit of Aerospatiale President Ziegler toVoronezh in 1971, a Franco-Soviet Joint Working Group exchanged data onSST developmental problems. Official Soviet delegations were admitted toConcorde production facilities at Toulouse to gather documentary informationand indulge in intensive photography and measurement of components. TheFrench rationalized that cooperation provided them an edge -over other com-petitors in the West- and might lead to sales within the USSR. After theFrench discovered Soviets scraping metal off the Concorde's engines in 1978,however, matters lapsed into -abeyance.- A French proposal to fly Concordenonstop through Soviet airspace to Tokyo, three months after the second TU144 crash in 1978, was turned down by the Soviets, ostensibly because ofconcern that the Concorde would degrade Siberian ecology. Western observerswere convinced the real reasons were Soviet security considerations, as well aspique that all TU 144s were again grounded.British dealings with the Soviets were frostier. Relations lay under thecloud of the mass expulsion of one hundred and five Soviet inte Ii(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)s true supersonic range fell short of Concorde's by about onet ousand miles. TU 144 was only a medium range SST, not a true commercialcompetitor to the long range Concorde.? The TV pool film provided a good picture of the mid-air explosion, but failed to identify the strickenchief designer arriving at the crash site.32Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Supersonic ---5-EerET(b)(3)(n)Indications of trouble also registered in comparing hours-in-air: althoughthe TU 144 had first flown three months before the Concorde, by 1972 it hadlogged only seven hundred hours of developmental flight, versus fifteen hun-dred for the Concorde.(b)(1)  (b)(3)(n)The Concorde's purchase price per seat was said to be tentimes that of a modern subsonic airliner; operating cost per passenger-milewould be twice as much. Concorde fuel consumption was estimated at threetimes that of a normal airliner. Cost weighed heavily upon commercial deci-sions to buy Concorde and undercut even more the prospects of the larger,heavier, and demonstrably thirstier TU 144.The Soviet SST was also hampered by Aeroflot's poor reputation for pro-vision of spares and overseas repair facilities, which for the TU 144 werecentralized in Moscow even on internal routes.(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)In the late 1960s the Soviets had already mounted an assiduous, if ulti-mately fruitless, courtship of British Concorde engineers, featuring weeklyinvitations from the Soviet Embassy in London to meet with Soviet -col-leagues- who "happened to be in the area.- The Soviet apparatus had earlyidentified Concorde's engines as the critical collection target. Soviet Kuznetsovturbofans came to surpass the Rolls Royce-Bristol engines in sheer thrust, butonly through ruinous near-permanent use of after-burners, whose heat fa-tigued TU 144's skin and airframe. This high speed bomber engine was heavy,smoky, and gluttonous, so much so that it is doubtful whether the TU 144could have crossed the Atlantic more than half full of passengers.Because Tupolev pushed mainly for greater power, engine efficiency re-ceived short shrift. In 1975 the Soviets approached the British firm LucasAerospace, discussing a $17-million contract for a modified version of thedigital fuel injection system used on the Concorde. Typically, initial Sovietdata furnished on NK-144 performance characteristics contained falsified in-formation. Lucas engineers corrected the data based on what they knew, andSoviet experts corrected the corrections in a series of "give and take technicalsessions.- The chief intelligence gain from these talks was to confirm in greaterdetail the design faults of the engine, whose internal -blow in- and -blow out-doors were designed to open and close at different times. Lucas concluded thatthe NK-144 was incapable of optimum operation at any speed.Further evidence of Soviet research and development failings was pro-vided by the Soviet insistence on the use of a hodgepodge of obsolete Westernengine control equipment, an admixture of both electronic and hydrome-chanical components, samples of which the USSR had assembled through bothlegal and clandestine purchases. What the Soviets were -ordering- was not thestate-of-the-art equipment of maximum possible benefit, but production tech-(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049333Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Supersonicnology for manufacturing complex, obsolete, and somewhat incompatible sys-tems. A bemused Lucas management supported such a sale, arguing it wouldprotect the Western lead in a vital area. These bizarre negotiations proceededfor two years, then were halted by the British in 1977.Chief designer Tupolev, aboard the TU 144 during its last visit to theWest at the 1977 Paris Air Show, had lost much of his earlier ebullience. Hehad no idea when Soviet authorities would authorize the beginning of the TU144's commercial service. He personally would be just as happy to stay withhigh-speed air freight, as passengers were just "too much trouble." By now theTupolev entourage was more forthcoming regarding the noise problem, whichafflicted ground crew, passengers, and residents. This necessitated flying theaircraft to remote airports.CommercializationUntil the mid-1970s it appeared that the TU 144 might emerge as acredible competitor to Concorde; Soviet advertising followed this theme until1976. Tupolev's glumness by 1977 reflected the fact that the TU 144 had nowdemonstrably fallen behind the Concorde. TU 144 route testing had begun inMay 1974 and scheduled flights of freight and mail on 26 December 1975, justbefore the launch of Concorde's first two international routes in January 1976.Air France and British Airways officials, noting that no flight schedules or rateswere available, dismissed this as -a propaganda exercise." Over the next twoyears fifty TU 144 freight runs were carried out, and eight were canceled.Ultimately, raison d'etat prevailed over the realities of the troubled testflight program. In October 1977 the TU 144 reportedly received its airworthi-ness certificate from a new Soviet authority, said to be set up on the lines of theUS Federal Aviation Administration. This bureaucratic convulsion may berelated to TU 144 travails. Previously, each design bureau had certified its ownaircraft as ready for use. The sparse documentation forwarded by the Sovietswas deemed inadequate by Western experts for air certification in their coun-tries. But within the USSR, the way was clear for supersonic "commercializa-tion."Coincident with the Diamond Jubilee of the Great October Revolution,Soviet SST passenger service was launched 1 November 1977, twenty-twomonths behind Concorde. This was a first rank Soviet media event, marredonly by the breakdown of the motorized embarkation ramp, which?to theobservable fury of Minister of Civil Aviation Boris Bugayev?delayed depar-ture for thirty minutes.This was a rare opportunity for Westerners to sample the aircraft in flight.Only two of the 113 passengers paid the $110 fare to Alma Ata; officiallyselected reporters and photographers comprised the remainder. Their chiefimpression was of the cacophony created by the monstrous air conditioners,the rush of air, and the huge engines. The rear of the cabin was unbearable;elsewhere, conversations were shouted. Because Aeroflot flights were "class-less," the survival of a first class cabin suggested that hope lingered for inter-national service. The 2,025-mile trip was completed in exactly two hours, withtake-off noise estimated at 110 decibels.34Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Supersonic(b)(3)(n)Possibly laundered Soviet documentation provided to the Franco-SovietJoint Working Group recorded 226 faults in the 102 flights undertaken be-tween 1 November 1977 and 1 June 1978. The most dramatic of these were asudden loss in cabin pressure on 27 December and that on 24 January thelanding gear light had stayed on. The real problem was that the TU 144 wasnot recovering costs on its single domestic route. The Concorde by now was inservice on seven international routes and at least operationally profitable onmost of them.The most basic problem?thirsty engines?remained. Reports had filteredout during the 1970s of new engines for the TU 144, possibly turbojets on thelines of the Concorde with smaller inlets and nacelles. This suggestion seemsnot to have been developed. By the mid-1970s, reports came out of a -variablegeometry, variable by-pass ratio" engine under development by the otherwiseobscure Koliesov Design Bureau. This engine was said to function as a turbojetsubsonically and as a turbofan supersonically, providing ontimtim efficiency inboth regimes. ater concludedthat a variable cycle engine was -an exceedingly complex scheme consideredbeyond current Soviet design capability."Reports nonetheless began to emerge of a new series TU 144D, fitted witha new type of engine -fifty percent more economical.- One of the first of theseaircraft, with Soviet premier test pilot Eduard Elyan presumably at the con-trols, crashed the afternoon of 23 May 1978.The news seeped out slowly to the West. Aeroflot in June -confirmed"that flights had been suspended, ending eight months of passenger service.Rumors circulating among Tupolev personnel indicated that a fire broke out inthe left engines and spread to the fuselage. The pilot was said to have success-fully shut down one or more engines, but came down in a field when powerfailed and he could not maintain altitude. The SST was gutted by burning fueland was then blown apart. Some time after the fact, Western aviation maga-zines reported that three crew members were burned to death and two sur-vived. Voronezh gossip set these numbers at nine and two, respectively.Whether the pilot survived is unknown in the West.reporting as late as 24 October 1978 was tentative.Official confirmation of the crash had in fact been made to the Frenchduring the Joint Working Group meeting of 11 October. The Soviet spokesmanadmitted under questioning that there had been a TU 144 crash, -but it wasnot an aircraft belonging to Tupolev or Aeroflot."At the 11 October joint meeting with the French, the Soviets produced adocument described by one participant as a -cry for help." Confirmation ofthe crash was followed by the -confidence" that Tupolev had recommendedsuspension of service to Alma Ata before the crash occurred, owing to highlevels of noise and fuel consumption. Development flights were continuing;regular passenger flights would resume within -months rather than years."There were no references to engine problems as such. But there was a litany ofshortcomings that may have reflected a crash post-mortem: ice forming aroundengine inlets, leaky fuel pipe connections, and an emergency on-board powersupply for the aircraft. The skin had fatigued, with cracks forming at the base(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049335(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)(b)(1)(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Supersonicof the fins and in the thin foil lining the wheel bay ahead of the nose gear,probably owing to heat or insufficient cooling or, possibly, acoustical cracking.The French responded that if they could provide technical aid, their Britishpartners would have to be consulted. There the matter presumably rested.The disaster of 23 May 1978 compounded the fearsome reputation of theTU 144 among the workers responsible for assembling it. Rumors abounded offurther crashes and flights aborted because of last-minute malfunctions. Athird crash, unreported by Soviet authorities, was believed to have occurred atthe end of a Moscow-Alma Ata run in 1974. The Bolshoi Ballet, it was said,had escaped death only by transferring to another aircraft at the last minute.Behind the Scenes Again: 1978-84The second crash marked the beginning of the end for the TU 144. Om-inously, the TU 144 began to disappear from the lists of future Soviet aircraftmentioned in the Soviet press. Komsomolskaya Pravda, observing the sixtiethbirthday of Tupolev in November 1978, made the admission?startling in theSoviet context?that -ideas and technical solutions developed by Tupolev formilitary bombers were not readily translatable to airliners where considera-tions of economy, comfort, and reliability were paramount.- This was not theSST's epitaph, but it may justly be regarded as the Soviet media's high watermark of candor. In December Sergei Pavlov, Deputy Minister of Civil Avia-tion, who a decade before had organized the abstraction of Concorde blue-prints from Toulouse to Moscow, conceded to Ambassador Hartman that theaircraft was experiencing -considerable difficulty.- Its thirty-percent ticketpremium did not even cover operating costs. By late 1978 Aeroflot hadlaunched a fuel conservation program nationwide and the politically impor-tant export of kerosene to its major market, India, was being suspended duringAugust, peak month of Aeroflot operations. Odds were against the TU 144, aconfirmed dipsomaniac even operated subsonically.The remaining life of the TU 144 was played out as it had begun: as aSoviet propaganda vehicle. On 23 June 1979 Soviet media announced that aTU 144 had flown the 4,350 miles from Moscow to Khabarovsk in three hoursand twenty-one minutes, to commenorate the fortieth anniversary of the firstnonstop flight (by a Tupolev) from Moscow to the Far East. On 4 March 1980the TU 144 made its last appearance in the Soviet media and the record books.Number 77106, which had inaugurated commercial flights, was flown to theSoviet Air Force Museum at Monino, near Moscow. Even in retirement, itacquired one final garland: it was the first supersonic airliner to land on dirt,using a sod runway frozen and extended for this special occasion. Three dragchutes brought it to rest in less than a kilometer of run-out. This curiousoccasion reflected an ancient Aeroflot requirement that all its equipment bedesigned to land on dirt.s remaine groun e or long periods, they wereoccasiona y observed being fitted with new engines. In March 1981 enginework was in progress on four TU 144Ds, and in April - May 1981 there were36__SEC--RETApproved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493Supersonic ___SEGRET(b)(3)(n)indications that the Soviets were preparing for a third try at entering the craftin commercial service. On 17 July 1981 the fifteenth (and probably last) TU144 was produced?the first for twenty months. Earlier production had beenenvisioned to be forty to fifty units. As late as January 1982 flight training wasreported as beginning once again at Shermetevo. Ministry of Civil Air officialsconfirmed that flights would continue even though results were -not up toexpectations."In June 1983 a Tupolev engineer, writing in Znamya (Science), referred tothe need for new engines for the TU 144, but referred to it chiefly in anostalgic vein. Finally, the Ministry of Civil Aviation in a summer 1.984 an-nouncement noted that development of the SST had been brought to an end.Production cost alone had been estimated at $2.8 billion. The Concorde R&Dcost approached $2.5 billion. On this analogue, the total cash cost to the Sovietsof the -Concordski" would be in the region of $4.5 billion.Factors Contributing to the Failure of the Soviet SSTForced draft development ordained by highest Soviet authority. Thisforced simultaneous development of all sub-systems. Unprecedented perform-ance requirements for high speed and range required time for sufficient sim-ulation of stress to anticipate design failures, but time was not available. Thedangerously telescoped development cycle made sound design impossible. Thepolitical prestige gained by a record breaker was prodigiously expensive.As a corollary, politicization of the research and development process.Its chief designer in 1977 claimed that the TU 144 was five percent higher, sixpercent longer, had a wingspan thirteen percent larger and twenty-two per-cent more wing area than the counterpart Concorde. This upsizing?almostcertainly dictated by requirements that were political rather than technical oreconomic?destroyed what chance the aircraft had for aerodynamic effi-ciency. The focused espionage effort against Aerospatiale-Toulouse in the mid-1960s provided good data on the aerodynamics of the Concorde prototype.The decision to go up scale?without the computer capability to redesign thelarger aircraft for maximum aerodynamic flow?undercut Soviet capability toproduce a clean aircraft.Soviet misperception that civil technology could not outrank military insophistication and complexity. A civil airliner capable of Mach II for sus-tained periods poses technical demands much greater than those for a fighter-bomber. Requirements for economy, quietness, and passenger comfort werenever resolved. What the Soviets flew was a raw, crude aircraft suitable for amilitary crew, but not for passengers?the fruit of decades of military domi-nation in aviation.Limited ability to exploit highly advanced Western technology obtainedthrough espionage. The very high priority accorded SST data and technologyin Soviet scientific and technical collection provided the Soviets with reams ofmaterial. Much of thedata collected through espionage was -unintelligible" to Soviet technicians.Information that was understandable often set requirements beyond the capa-(b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 00062049337Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493(b)(3)(n)Supersonicbilities of Soviet materiel and production technology. Incapable of copying theConcorde, the Soviets had to construct a parable.Soviet decision to join the West at the technological frontier, ratherthan follow behind. Soviet infrastructure could not produce the equipmentrequired to ensure commercially viable SST flight. Fifteen years of improvisa-tion and patchwork never closed the gap. Avionics were always in an experi-mental state and the flight deck took on a finished look only in 1977.Overcompartmentation and secrecy, fueled by interministerial rivalriesand jealousies between the design bureaus. Soviet aircraft development isshared by the Ministry of Aviation Industry and the Ministry of Civil Aviation,though the respective spheres of responsibility are uncertain, possibly even tothe Soviets. Tupolev was resented by other design bureaus as the favoreddesign bureau, in the beginning because it received all the resources and creditfor a project involving the whole industry, at the end because of its failure.Technicelly inept development. Soviet skill in manufacturing titaniumwas not followed by its successful application to the airframe. Though thedesign target was that thirty percent of the aircraft's weight should be tita-nium, in practice this dropped to eighteen percent. This contributed to anoverweight aircraft that crept up an additional fifty percent in weight over thecourse of its development. This in itself is not uncommon, but the commercialviability of the TU 144 was undercut by the inability of the engineers toextract more power from the engines. A thirty percent increase in thrust wasachieved by 1972.  Then development of the NK 144 engines apparentlyhalted, thou( b)( 1) concluded that proper flow analysis and tuningcould have e(b)(3)(n)Lnother twenty-five percent increase in power from theengines. Because the weight creep was greater than the extra power coaxedfrom the engines, the actual speed and range of the TU 144 dropped as timewent on. The problem was not solely that the engines lagged behind Westernstandards of performance, but that the Soviets lacked the ability to extractmaximum results from their own equipment. This corroborates expert obser-vation that there is a great gulf fixed between Soviet theory and application:though Soviet theoretical knowledge is second to none, shopfloor practice isoften "crude blacksmith" work.. . . As in the Russian fable of the Firebird, the Soviet politicalleadership had become intoxicated with its vision of the SST danc-ing in the wilderness beyond the USSR's technological reach. TheSoviets had mounted a mighty effort to capture the secrets of super-sonic commercial flight but came away bearing only the symbolicgolden tuft of entries in the record books.This article is classifieclier(b)(3)(n)38 ___5ECR-Ef (b)(3)(n)Approved for Release: 2014/07/29 000620493