Dec 26 1975
From The Space Library
The Christmas Day inaugural flight announced for the U.S.S.R.'s supersonic jetliner had been delayed a day by weather conditions variously reported as runway ice or fog at the destination, but its first flight carrying freight and mail from Moscow to Alma Ata-capital of the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan-took only 4 hr for the 8000-km round trip. The Tupolev-144 airliner, rival of the British-French Concorde, could fly at an altitude of up to 46.3 km, higher than conventional airliners. Although the flights had been billed as the first commercial service by a supersonic jet, and had been scheduled to get ahead of the Concorde passenger service set for January between Paris and Rio and between London and Bahrain, Tu-144 would not carry passengers until the second half of 1976 at the earliest, and then on internal routes, according to Deputy Aviation Minister Nikolai Boikov. (NYT, 27 Dec 75,2; Miami Herald, 27 Dec 75, 20A)
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