Tu-104 "Camel" @·AIRCRAFTUBE

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Tupolev Tu-104

The Tu-104, (NATO reporting name: Camel), was a twin-engined medium-range turbojet-powered Soviet airliner. After the British de Havilland Comet, Canadian Avro Jetliner, and the French Sud-Aviation Caravelle, the Tu-104 was the fourth jet airliner to fly, and the second to enter regular service. It was also the sole jetliner in service in the world from 1954 to 1958.

Design and development

At the beginning of the 1950s, the Soviet Union's Aeroflot airline desperately needed a modern airliner with better capacity and performance than any other Soviet plane then in operation. The design request was filled by the Tupolev OKB, which based their new airliner on its Tu-16 'Badger' strategic bomber, the first version was more similar to the Tu-16 and it got square windows like the early de Havilland Comet, but this was later changed before the airplane made its maiden flight. The airplane was pressure tested in a watertank. The wings, engines, and tail surfaces of the Tu-16 were retained in the airliner, but the new design adopted a wider, pressurised fuselage to accommodate 50 passengers. The prototype, (CCCP-L5400), first flew on June 17, 1955 with Yu.L. Alasheyev at the controls at Kharkiv plant in Ukraine. It was fitted with a drogue parachute which could shorten the landing run by up to 400 metres (or 1,312 ft).

Its arrival in London during a 1956 state visit by Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev shocked Western observers who, by the time, thought the Soviets lacked the advanced technology needed to build a comercial airliner with such performance.

The Tu-104 was powered by two Mikulin AM-3 turbojets placed at the wing-fuselage junction (similar to the de Havilland Comet). The crew needed to fly her consisted of 5 people: 2 pilots, 1 navigator (placed in the glazed "bomber" nose), 1 flight engineer and 1 radio operator. This airplane raised great curiosity by its lavish "Victorian" interior - called so by some Western-hemisphere observers - due to the materials used: mahogany, copper and lace.

On September 15, 1956, it began revenue service in Aeroflot's Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route, replacing the old Ilyushin Il-14. The flight time was reduced from 13 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 40 minutes. In 1957, CSA became the first foreign airline to operate the Tu-104 in the routes with Moscow, Paris and Brussels as destinations.

The small capacity, (50 passengers) and the excessive strength and therefore weight inherited from the Tupolev Tu-16 were some of the reasons for its low profitability. By the time production ceased in 1960, about 200 had been built. Aeroflot did not retire the Tu-104 from civil service until 1979, and the aircraft continued to serve in the Soviet Air Force until 1981, when a crash showed it to be unsafe. The last flight of the type was a ferry flight to a museum in 1986. CSA Czechoslovak Airlines, the Czechoslovak national airline, bought six, (four new and two used) of Tu-104As configured for 81 passengers.

Following its removal from civil service, several aircraft were transferred to the Soviet military, which used them as staff transports and to train cosmonauts in zero gravity.

Variants

  • Tu-104 - initial version seating 50 passengers. It used 2 Mikulin AM-3 with 6,735 kg of unitary thrust. 20 airframes were built.
  • Tu-104A - First appeared in June, 1957; continuing improvements in the Mikulin engines, (Mikulin AM-3M with 8,700 kg of unitary thrust) permitted significant growth in the Tu-104 resulting in a 70-seater variant. The Tu-104A became the definitive production variant. On September 6, 1957, it flew with 20 tons of payload at 11,200 m of altitude. On September 24, 1957, it reached 971 Km/h average speed with a 2 ton payload.
  • Tu-104B - Further improvements were attained with the 1.2 m stretched fuselage fitted with new engines, the Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojets, (9,700 Kg of unitary thrust), and able to accommodate 100 passengers. This variant took advantage of using the newer fuselage from the Tupolev Tu-110 and the existing wings. It began revenue service with Aeroflot on April 15, 1959 on the Moscow-Saint Petersburg route.
  • Tu-104D - Tu-104A airframes rebuilt to accommodate 85 passengers.
  • Tu-104V - Tu-104A airframes rebuilt to accommodate 100 passengers.
  • Tu-104E - Record breaking version.
  • Tu-104LL Flying testbed. Armed heavy Air-Air missiles tests.
  • Tu-107 - Military transport version with rear loading ramp and defense cannon turret.
  • Tu-110 - Four-engined transport prototype.

Operators

CSA, the Czechoslovak Airlines (had Six aircraft) and in the Soviet Union, Aeroflot and the Soviet Air Force flew the Tu-104.

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This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Tu-104 of Wikipedia ( authors )

Tupolev Tu-104

  • Role : Narrow-body jet airliner.
  • Manufacturer : Tupolev OKB.
  • Designer : Andrei Tupolev.
  • First flight : 17 June 1955.
  • Introduction : 15 September 1956 (Aeroflot).
  • Retired : 1981.
  • Primary users :
  • Produced : 1956–1960.
  • Number built : 201.
  • Developed from : Tupolev Tu-16.
  • Variants :

    • Specifications (Tu-104B)

  • Crew : 7.
  • Capacity : 50 to 115 passengers.
  • Length : 40.05 m (or 131 ft 5 in).
  • Height : 11.90 m (or 39 ft).
  • Wingspan : 34.54 m (or 113 ft 4 in).
  • Wing area : 184 m² (or 1,975 ft²).
  • Empty weight : 43,800 kg (or 96,560 lb).
  • Max takeoff weight : 78,100 kg (or 172,180 lb).
  • Maximum speed : 950 km/h (or 512 kts, or 590 mph).
  • Range : 2,650 km (or 1,430 nm, or 1,650 mi).
  • Service ceiling : 11,887 m (39,000 ft).
  • Rate of climb : 10 m/s (or 2,000 ft/min).
  • Powerplant : Two Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojets.
  • Thrust : 21,400 lbf (or 95.1 kN) each.

— — — = = — — —

This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Tu-104 of Wikipedia ( authors )
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