Paul Duffy/MOSCOW
The international supersonic transport flight-test programme, involving a Tupolev Tu-144 as a flying laboratory, is set to be extended following a new agreement by the Russian and US programme partners.
Tupolev, NASA and a group of US aerospace companies led by Boeing have agreed to undertake eight more flights with the Tu-144LL to enable an additional six experiments to be carried out.
Under the new programme, which comes after the successful first round of tests conducted during 1997, two US pilots will fly the aircraft.
The programme is in four stages, and is scheduled to be concluded by the end of March 1999. The first phase, to make the aircraft airworthy and install additional test equipment, has been completed.
The second will begin on 5 September, when five US specialists arrive in Moscow, led by former astronaut and Space Shuttle commander Charles Fullerton. He will become the first US pilot to fly the Tu-144.
This stage will start with a two-week ground advisory course on the Tu-144 for the two pilots and three researchers from NASA's Ames and Dryden facilities and from Boeing.
The first flight is expected to take place during the second week of September, and will be flown by an all-Russian crew. The second, with Fullerton as co-pilot, will follow about a week later.
There will be a total of four flights in this stage, all subsonic, intended to expand knowledge in areas of cabin noise abatement, ground effect from slender wings, stability and control evaluations, measurement of friction and drag and measuring wing deformation in different stages of flight and at different altitudes.
Next will come the installation of additional sensors, after which the aircraft will continue flying at Mach 2 to obtain comparatives. Additional testing will include measuring outer surface heating, heating measurements of the fuel system, pressure distribution and boundary layer problems.
Tu-144LL chief designer Alexander Pukhov describes the testing as an intermediate step which he hopes will lead to further programmes. He says that the first series of tests has already assisted Boeing to develop new technology for subsonic aircraft.
Source: Flight International
