The Tupolev Tu-144 Charger was a supersonic transport aircraft AKA Koncordski, on 15/07/69 it became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2, and the fastest commercial airliner ever.
A prototype first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two months before Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the sound barrier on 5 June 1969.The TU-144 was also outfitted as a supersonic nuclear bomber. The Americans were scared as hell of this thing. It was so fast that if it got past the fighter defenses they couldn't catch it (It could even outrun medium and long-range missiles).
Tu-144 was 65.7 metres (215.6 feet) in length, with a wingspan of 28.8 metres (94.5 feet) and a range of over 6500 /km.Its normal cruising speed was up to Mach 2.2, more than twice the speed of sound. Among its notable features were the “double-delta” swept-back wings, the “moustache” foreplanes that pivoted out from the fuselage just aft of the flight deck to improve flight characteristics during takeoff and landing, and the nose section that could be “drooped” downward to improve the crew’s line of vision during takeoff and landing.
