History Of Tupolev

Tupolev Tu-104 By Patrick Mondout The first Soviet civilian jet, the Tupolev Tu-104, had at least as much impact in the Soviet Union as the Comet did in England. The Soviet union was quite large and turboprop airliners such as the LI-2 (which was actually a Douglas DC-3 copied under license), Il-12, and Il-14 were painfully slow over such distances. In fact it took such aircraft over 32 hours and seven refueling stops to get from Moscow to the easternmost outreaches of the USSR. While the need to keep pace technologically with the West in the Cold War was a motivating factor, an aircraft like the Tu-104 was needed in any case and legendary Soviet aircraft designed Andrei Tupolov, whose design bureau Tupolov designed over half of the Soviet jets during his lifetime, was up to the task. Tupolov, who had been imprisoned by Stalin along with most of his colleagues in the 1930s, didn't have to look far for inspiration for what would become the only the second jet in the world to enter passenger service*, he was at the time putting the finishing touches on the Tu-16 twin turbojet bomber (see a picture here). By simply modifying the bomber to fit Aeroflot's needs, the time needed to engineer the Tu-104 was short - the major upgrade being a pressurized cabin needed for the high-altitude passenger flights.