POSTCARD N.107 - RUSSIA

Postcrossing postcard sent on the 4th June, received on the  5th July 2023

Postcard image: Tupolev TU-144
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Just returned from the first part of my holidays, it's time to catch up with the nice stack of potential blog entries I have on my desk.

So, without further ado...

As it is the norm with Julia's letters, inside the nice cover she had sent me,  and which I posted as Cover 276, was a great aviation themed card.

Thanks a lot Julia!

The Tu 144 was the soviet counterpart of the Concorde. Although its maiden flight took place on the last day of 1968,  two months before the Franco-British project,  it would only begin its rather short commercial career, comprising but 55 flights between Alma-Ata in Cazakistan and Moscow, in December 1977, that is some 2 years past the first commercial Concorde flight, which took place on 21 January 1976.

The design similarities between the two aircraft are rather apparent and  although the Soviet design was bigger,  the two protruding retractable canards aft of the cockpit on the TU 144 were the most striking difference on first look. 

To this day, the Tu-144 holds the title of fastest commercial aircraft, with a maximum cruising speed of 1,510 mph (2,430 km/h), while the Concorde topped at 1,354 mph (2,179 km/h).

I was a lad of 13. And I dreamed of being a pilot when I grew up.

On my black  and white TV (well, in what concerns colours, my set was as good as any other working in Portugal at the time, since colour TV was still a long way  into the future), aircraft and aviation programmes were few and far between, so I was really excited to watch the direct transmission from Le Bourget of the display flights of the 30th Salon International de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace de Paris-Le Bourget, the 3rd June, 1973.

The more so since the two great looking new supersonic passenger aircraft would be flying. Trembling with anticipation, I sat on the couch that was usually and hierarchically used by my father  in front of the Tv set and waited for the big moment.

After the uneventful flight of the Concorde, the Tu-144 took off for what was to be an equally normal display flight, when all of the sudden the aircraft went into a dive and broke up, crashing into the ground. I couldn't believe my eyes and I remember feeling rather sorry for all those on board, which I immediately knew had perished. (the total victims tally of the accident was14 dead: 6 on board and 8 in the ground, plus 60 badly injured).

Many years later, my dreams of becoming a pilot definitively shelved, I watched in utter discomfort the footage of a Concorde in flames flying into what was to be and equally horrendous and even more deadly crash ....

The end of an era, but I will never forget the early evenings (1978, was it?) when I would go to the terrace at Lisbon airport to watch the Concorde depart from our capital.... oh, the noise.... oh, the magnificent plumes of the afterburners setting the night alight.......