Tupolev Tu-104

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-104

The Tupolev Tu-104 (NATO reporting name: Camel) was a twinjet medium-range
narrow-body turbojet-powered Soviet airliner. It was the second to enter in
regular service, behind the British de Havilland Comet, and was the only
jetliner operating in the world from 1956 to 1958, when the British jetliner was
grounded due to safety matters.

In 1957, Czechoslovak Airlines – CSA, (now Czech Airlines) became the first
airline in the world to fly a route exclusively with jet airliners, using the
Tu-104A variant between Prague and Moscow. In civil service, the Tu-104 carried
over 90 million passengers with Aeroflot (then the world's largest airline), and
a lesser number with CSA, while it also saw operation with the Soviet Air Force.
Its successors included the Tu-124, the Tu-134 and the Tu-154.


At the beginning of the 1950s, the Soviet Union's Aeroflot airline needed a
modern airliner with better capacity and performance than the piston-engined
aircraft 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
wings, engines, and tail surfaces of the Tu-16 were retained with the airliner,
but the new design adopted a wider, pressurised fuselage designed to accommodate
50 passengers. The prototype build in MMZ 'Opit' first flew on June 17, 1955
with Yu.L. Alasheyev at the controls. It was fitted with a drag parachute to
shorten the landing distance by up to 400 metres (1,300 ft), since at the time
not many airports had sufficiently long runways.

Although a popular story says Westerners were surprised by the arrival of the
Tu-104 in London during a 1956 state visit by Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita
Khrushchev, the airplane had already been revealed at the July 1955 Tushino
airshow.

The Tu-104 was powered by two Mikulin AM-3 turbojets placed in the wing roots
(resembling the configuration of the de Havilland Comet). The crew consisted of
five people: two pilots, a navigator (seated in the glazed "bomber" nose), a
flight engineer and a radio operator (later eliminated). The airplane raised
great curiosity by its lavish "Victorian" interior – so-called by some
Western-hemisphere observers – due to the materials used: mahogany, copper and
lace.

Tu-104 pilots were trained on the Il-28 bomber, followed by mail flights on an
unarmed Tu-16 bomber painted in Aeroflot colors, between Moscow and Sverdlovsk.
Pilots with previous Tu-16 experience transitioned into the Tu-104 with relative
ease. The Tu-104 was considered difficult to fly, as it was heavy on controls
and quite fast on final approach, and at low speeds it would display a tendency
to stall, a feature common with highly-swept wings. Experience with the Tu-104
led the Tupolev Design Bureau to develop the world's first turbofan series-built
airliner, the Tupolev Tu-124, designed for local markets, and subsequently the
more commercially successful Tu-134.


Role
Narrow-body jet airliner

Manufacturer
Tupolev OKB

Designer
Andrei Tupolev

First flight
17 June 1955; 64 years ago

Introduction
15 September 1956 (Aeroflot)

Retired
1981

Status
Retired

Primary users
Aeroflot
CSA

Produced
1956–1960

Number built
201

Developed from
Tupolev Tu-16

Variants
Tupolev Tu-110
Tupolev Tu-124

On 15 September 1956, the Tu-104 began revenue service on Aeroflot's
Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route, replacing the Ilyushin Il-14. The flight time was
reduced from 13 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 40 minutes, and the new jet
dramatically increased the level of passenger comfort. By 1957, Aeroflot had
placed the Tu-104 in service on routes from Vnukovo Airport in Moscow to London,
Budapest, Copenhagen, Beijing, Brussels, Ottawa, Delhi, and Prague.

In 1957, CSA Czechoslovak Airlines became the only export customer for the
Tu-104, placing the aircraft on routes to Moscow, Paris, and Brussels. CSA
bought six Tu-104As (four new and two used examples) configured for 81
passengers. Three of these aircraft were subsequently written off (one due to a
refueling incident in India and another to a pilot error without fatalities).

Whilst the Tu-104 continued to be used by Aeroflot throughout the 1960s and
1970s, the safety record of the aircraft was poor, in comparison to other jet
airliners of its day (16 out of 96 aircraft were lost in crashes). The Tu-104
was unreliable, heavy, very unstable with poor control response, with an
inclination to Dutch roll. Poor design aerodynamics of the wings resulted in a
propensity to stall with little or no warning and a dangerous tendency to
pitch-up violently before stalling and entering an irrecoverable dive. Due to
the fear of inadvertent stalls aircrew would fly approaches above the
recommended approach speed, landing at 270–300 km/h (170–190 mph), nearly 50
km/h (31 mph) faster. At least 2 accidents were attributed to the pitch-up
phenomenon, prompting changes to the design of the aircraft and operating
procedures, but the problem remained. Aeroflot retired the Tu-104 from civil
service in March 1979 following a fatal accident at Moscow, but several aircraft
were transferred to the Soviet military, which used them as staff transports and
to train cosmonauts in zero gravity. After a military Tu-104 crash in February
1981 killed 52 people (17 were senior army and naval staff), the type was
permanently removed from service. The last flight of the Tu-104 was a ferry
flight to Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum in 1986.

Specifications (Tu-104B)

General characteristics
Crew: 7
Capacity: 50–115 passengers
Length: 40.06 m (131 ft 5 in)
Wingspan: 34.54 m (113 ft 4 in)
Height: 11.9 m (39 ft 1 in)
Wing area: 183 m2 (1,970 sq ft) less LERX
Airfoil: root: PR-1-10S-9 (15.7%) ; tip: PR-1-10S-9 (12%)
Empty weight: 43,800 kg (96,562 lb)
Gross weight: 78,100 kg (172,181 lb)
Fuel capacity: 21,000 kg (46,297 lb) normal ; 26,500 kg (58,422 lb) maximum
Powerplant: 2 × Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojet engines, 95 kN (21,400 lbf) thrust
each

Performance
Maximum speed: 950 km/h (590 mph, 510 kn)

Cruising speed: 750–850 km/h (470–530 mph; 400–460 kn) at 10,000–12,000 m
(32,808–39,370 ft)
Range: 2,120 km (1,320 mi, 1,140 nmi) with 12,000 kg (26,455 lb) payload and
5,650 kg (12,456 lb) fuel reserve
2,750 km (1,709 mi) with 8,150 kg (17,968 lb) payload and 5,650 kg (12,456 lb)
fuel reserveService ceiling: 12,000 m (39,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 10 m/s (2,000 ft/min)

Take-off run at MTOW: 2,200 m (7,218 ft)
Landing run at normal landing weight: 1,450–1,850 m (4,757–6,070 ft) without
brake parachute




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