[1]. The author gratefully acknowledges the essential and superb support provided by Russ Barber and Glenn Bever, of the Dryden Flight Research Center, and Bruce Jackson, Steve Rizzi, and Donna Amole, of the Langley Research Center. This case study is dedicated to the many diligent professionals in the United States and Russia who made this project a reality and to my wife, Natale, and my sons, Jack and Sam, without whose love and support it could not have been completed.
[2]. Much of the background material for this essay, unless otherwise referenced, comes from the author’s extensive notes and papers related to this program. As one of the NASA research pilots participating in this experiment, the author was a firsthand witness to the events described herein. Where published documents do not exist, interviews and the notes from the other participants were used to complete the account.
[3]. Joseph R. Chambers, Innovation in Flight: Research of the NASA Langley Research Center on Revolutionary Advanced Concepts for Aeronautics, NASA SP-2005-4539, pp. 49–54. Chambers provides an informative history of supersonic research at NASA from the 1960s through the High-Speed Research program as well as a complete bibliography.
[4]. Chambers, Innovation in Flight, pp. 58–60.
[5]. Interview of Marvin R. Barber by author, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, July 1, 2009. Russ Barber was the NASA Dryden Project Manager for the Tu-144 flight experiment from Sept. 1994 through Dec. 1998. He managed the contractual, budget, and support activities and served as an interface between NASA and the contractors, including Boeing and Tupolev.
[6]. Barber, “The Tu-144LL Supersonic Flying Laboratory,” unpublished, draft NASA study, NASA HD archives, 2000.
[7]. Barber interview.
[8]. Chambers, Innovation in Flight, p. 60.
[9]. Roy V. Harris, Jr., “Tu-144LL Flight Experiments Review and Critique,” NASA HSR Program Office, NASA Langley Research Center (Feb. 9, 1999). This valuable, unpublished document was a report to the HSR Program Office by a former NASA Langley aerodynamicist and Director of Aeronautics. The HSR Program Office tasked him to independently review the Phase I results, data quality, data uniqueness, and program applicability, and to make recommendations regarding use of theTu-144LL. Harris was an expert on supersonic flight.
[10]. E-mail interview of Norman H. Princen by author, Apr. 7, 2009.
[11]. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, “The Tu-144LL: A Supersonic Flying Laboratory,” Internet Fact Sheet.
[12]. Ibid.
[13]. Stephen A. Rizzi, “Brief Background of Program and Overview of Experiment,” unpublished notes, NASA Langley Research Center, June 19, 1998.
[14]. Barber interview.
[15]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[16]. Robert A. Rivers, E. Bruce Jackson, C. Gordon Fullerton, Timothy H. Cox, and Norman H. Princen, “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tupolev Tu-144 Supersonic Transport,” NASA TM-2000-209850 (Feb. 2000), p. 4.
[17]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[18]. Interview of Fullerton by author, Lancaster, CA, July 1, 2009.
[19]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[20]. Langley engineer and USPET member Bruce Jackson coined USPET on arrival in Russia as a wordplay between NASA’s penchant for acronyms and the Russian language the team was trying to learn. The name stuck, at least informally.
[21]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” NASA TM-2000-209850,p. 18. Complete details of the flight-test planning and preparation for the American-flown flights is provided in that document.
[22]. Howard Moon, Soviet SST: The Technopolitics of the Tupolev-144 (New York: Orion Books, 1989), pp. 75–88. Moon provides a detailed history of Tupolev’s efforts to build and market the Tu-144 against a background of politics and national pride.
[23]. Paul Duffy and Andrei Kandalov, Tupolev: The Man and His Aircraft (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1996), pp. 153–157. Duffy and Kandalov report on the history of the Tupolev Design Bureau and give an account of the development of the Tu-144.
[24]. Duffy and Kandalov, Tupolev: The Man and His Aircraft, pp. 153–157.
[25]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” NASA TM-2000-209850, p. 2.
[26]. Stephen A. Rizzi, Robert G. Rackl, and Eduard V. Andrianov, “Flight Test Measurements from the Tu-144LL Structure/Cabin Noise Experiment,” NASA TM-2000-209858 (Jan. 2000), p. 1.
[27]. A more thorough description can be found in Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” NASA TM-2000-209850, pp. 4–15. This technical manuscript contains a detailed systems and operations description of the Tu-144, which, as far as is known, is the only extant English description. The systems information was obtained from the author’s extensive notes, taken onsite at the Tupolev test facility in Zhukovsky, Russia, in Sept. 1998. These notes were derived from one-on-one lectures from various Tupolev systems experts, as conveyed through translators. While there may be some minor discrepancies, these systems descriptions should for the most part accurately portray the Tu-144LL. Other than the powerplant and some fuel system modifications, this account describes the generic Tu-144D aircraft as well.
[28]. British Aircraft Corporation, Ltd., Commercial Aircraft Division, An Introduction to the Slender Delta Supersonic Transport (Bristol, England: Printing and Graphic Services, Ltd., 1975), pp. 15–19.
[29]. Barber, “Tu-144LL Reports, Data, and Documentation Disposition,” NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, July 11, 2001.
[30]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[31]. Barber, “Tu-144LL Reports, Data, and Documentation Disposition.”
[32]. Rizzi, et al., “Structure/Cabin Noise Experiment,” NASA TM-2000-209858; Robert G. Rackl and Stephen A. Rizzi, “Structure/Cabin Noise,” HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220, TU-144LL Follow On Program, vol. 5 (June 1999). Unfortunately, the data archival effort received a setback when Boeing, for reasons unknown, discarded much of its HSR documentation on pre-2001 efforts. Barber, “Tu-144LL Reports, Data, and Documentation Disposition.”
[33]. E-mail interview of Glenn A. Bever by author, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, May 28, 2009.
[34]. Ibid.
[35]. Ibid.
[36]. The Boeing Company, “Volume 2: Experiment 1.2. Surface/Structure Equilibrium Temperature Verification,” Flight Research Using Modified Tu-144 Aircraft, Final Report, HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220 (May 1998). This and the subsequent volumes of the Boeing contractor report, HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220, provide much detail on the six Phase I experiments, while the Follow-On Program Boeing contractor report of June 1999 reports on the Phase II experiments.
[37]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[38]. The Boeing Company, “Volume 3: Experiment 1.5, Propulsion System Thermal Environment Database,” Flight Research Using Modified Tu-144 Aircraft, Final Report, HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220 (May 1998).
[39]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[40]. The Boeing Company, “Volume 4: Experiment 1.6, Slender Wing Ground Effects,” Flight Research Using Modified Tu-144 Aircraft, Final Report, HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220 (May 1998).
[41]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[42]. Rizzi, “Brief Background of Program and Overview of Experiments.”
[43]. Rizzi, et al., “Structure/Cabin Noise Experiment,” NASA TM-2000-209858, pp. 1–5.
[44]. Interview of Donna Amole by author, Hampton, VA, July 3, 2009.
[45]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[46]. The Boeing Company, “Volume 7: Experiment 3.3, Cp, Cf, and Boundary Layer Measurements Database,” Flight Research Using Modified Tu-144 Aircraft, Final Report, HSR-AT Contract No. NAS1-20220 (May 1998).
[47]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[48]. Ibid.
[49]. Eugene A. Morrelli, “Low-Order Equivalent System Identification for the Tu-144LL Supersonic Transport Aircraft,” Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 26, no. 2, (Mar.–Apr. 2003), p. 354.
[50]. Harris, “Flight Experiments Review and Critique.”
[51]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tupolev Tu-144 Supersonic Transport,” NASA TM-2000-209850, describes flights 20–23 in detail, to include the planning, execution, and results.
[52]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” NASA TM-2000-209850, p. 17.
[53]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” p. 20.
[54]. Rivers, et al., “A Qualitative Piloted Evaluation of the Tu-144,” pp. 34–36.