Concorde and Tupolev are acknowledged as some of the first planes to break the sound barrier, but it wasn't them. Which one actually did it first?

This documentary tells the story of the Tupolev Tu-144, the Soviet Union’s answer to the Concorde. Developed amid intense Cold War rivalry, it briefly became the first supersonic commercial airliner ...

To many, when they think of supersonic airliners, they instantly think of Concorde. The joint Anglo-French aircraft that served for nearly 30 years, ferrying people across the Atlantic at Mach 2.

Everyone knows about the Concorde, which shot across the Atlantic at over twice the speed of sound for decades. But it wasn't the only supersonic airliner. For a little while there was one more, and ...

When the first Tupolev Tu-144 thundered its way into aeronautical history 50 years ago, lifting off from Zhukovksy airfield on the last day of 1968, much of the supersonic programme remained cloaked ...

Developed in the 1960s/1970s, the Tu-144 was the Soviet Union's only practical venture into supersonic commercial aviation. Though its career was all too brief, it was a major technological ...

Its maiden flight lasted for a little over half an hour and failed to reach the Mach speed it was engineered for. But when the Tupolev Tu-144 successfully took to the air on December 31, 1968, it gave ...