| Tu-124 | |
|---|---|
| Aeroflot Tu-124 at Arlanda Airport in 1966 | |
| Role | Airliner |
| Manufacturer | Tupolev OKB |
| First flight | 29 March 1960 |
| Introduction | 2 October 1962 |
| Retired | 1980 (civil aviation), 1992 (military service) |
| Status | Retired |
| Primary users | Aeroflot ČSA |
| Number built | 164 |
| Developed from | Tupolev Tu-104 |
| Variants | Tupolev Tu-134 |
The Tupolev Tu-124 (NATO reporting name: Cookpot) was a 56 passenger short range twinjet airliner built in the Soviet Union. It was the world's first turbofan-powered airliner.
Contents |
Developed from the medium-range Tupolev Tu-104, the Tu-124 was meant to meet Aeroflot's requirement for a regional airliner to supersede the Ilyushin Il-14 on the airline’s domestic routes. Resembling a 75% scaled-down version, the two were hard to tell apart when seen at a distance. However, it was not a complete copy of the Tu-104. The Tu-124 included a number of refinements, including double-slotted flaps, a large centre-section airbrake and automatic spoilers. Unlike the Tu-104, the wing trailing edge inboard of the undercarriage was unswept.[1]
The Tu-124 retained a drogue parachute to be used in the event of an emergency landing or landing on a slippery surface and had low pressure tires to aid operation from unpaved airfields.[2][3] As with the Tu-104, the engines were integrated into the wings, but it enjoyed much better fuel efficiency, due to the use of turbofan engines. However, the non-optimal placement of the engines amplified vibrations, which affected the comfort of the passenger cabin, and also the fatigue lifetime of the wing asembly.
The standard seating of the basic version was 44 seats. The first of two prototype, SSSR-45000 (C/N 0350101) made its first flight from Zhukovsky airfield on 24 March 1960. The second prototype, SSSR-45001 (C/N 0350102), followed in June 1960. Two other airframes served as a static test cells. Testing was successful, and the aircraft entered production at Factory 135 at Kharkov, Ukraine, replacing the Tu-104 in production.[2][4] Deliveries to Aeroflot began in August 1962, with the type operating its first scheduled passenger service, between Moscow and Tallinn in Estonia, on 2 October 1962.[5]
Aeroflot was impressed with the flight performance of the Tu-124, and began placing it into service on domestic routes from the end of 1962.
The improved Tu-124V, which could seat 56 passengers instead of the 44 of the original model, and which had increased range and maximum take-off weight, came into service in 1964. Despite the aircraft's low purchase price (stated as $1.45 millon in 1965) and low operating costs,[6] few were exported, with Československé Státní Aerolinie (ČSA) and the East German airline Interflug being the only airlines other than Aeroflot that bought the Tu-124 new, although ČSA sold its surviving Tu-124s to Iraqi Airways for use on VIP flights in 1973. Interflug used its three Tu-124s as an alternative to the Ilyushin Il-62, when the Il-62s were grounded due to mechanical issues. All three were sold back to the Soviet Union in 1975.
Three airframes were completed in 1966 in a VIP configuration, and designated Tu-124K. However, Aeroflot never placed them into service, and they were purchased by the Indian Air Force.
A number were also sold to military users, including the Soviet Air Force, which used them as navigational trainers, and to the Chinese Air Force.[2][7]
A total of 164 Tu-124s were built.[8] Issues with the safety of the Tu-104 had an impact on the fate of the Tu-124, although the reliability of the Tu-124 was slightly better. In 1965, the aircraft was withdrawn from production. In the USSR, Aeroflot decommissioned its last twelve Tu-124s on 21 January 1980. The Tu-124 continued in operation for some years with the Soviet Air Force and in Iraq, but all aircraft were withdrawn before 1990.
Several Tu-124s have been preserved. One is in the museum of Kharkov State Aircraft Manufacturing Company (formerly the Tu-124 manufacturer Factory 135), another is in China's Datangshan aviation museum in Beijing and a third is at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino outside Moscow. A Tu-124K is on display at New Delhi Airport.
The German Democratic Republic attempted to compete within the COMECON trading bloc with its own four-engined design called the Baade B-152. The design was unsuccessful, leading Interflug to buy a rear-engined development of the Tu-124, the Tupolev Tu-134, instead.
A total of 13 Tu-124s were written off in crashes during the type's operational career, and two aircraft of Iraqi Airways were destroyed on the ground during the Gulf War[9]
| Date | Tail number | Crash Site | Casualties | Brief description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 August 1963 | USSR 45021 | USSR Leningrad | 0/52 | ditched in the Neva river in Leningrad after it ran out of fuel. The crew were distracted by problems with the landing gear. All occupants of the aircraft survived the ditching. |
| 8 March 1965 | USSR 45028 | USSR Kuibyshev | 25/25 | crashed shortly after taking off from Kuybyshev Airport, Russia on a flight to Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, after the pilots lost control of the aircraft. The accident killed all 17 passengers and eight crew on board.[10] |
| 11 November 1965 | USSR 45086 | USSR Murmansk | 32/NA | failed landing |
| 7 March 1968 | USSR 45019 | USSR Volgograd | 1/NA | bad weather |
| 29 January 1970 | USSR 45083 | USSR Murmansk | 11/NA | crashed in mountain while landing: several survivors died of hypothemia while waiting for rescue |
| 18 August 1970 | Czechoslovakia OK-TEB | Swiss Zurich | 0/20 | pilot forgot to lower landing gear |
| 2 September 1970 | USSR 45012 | USSR Dnepropetrovsk | 37/37 | unknown |
| 9 July 1970 | USSR 45062 | USSR Kuibyshev | 2/61 | lost power on takeoff |
| 21 November 1973 | USSR 45031 | USSR Kazan | 0/NA | overran runway |
| 16 December 1973 | USSR 45061 | USSR Moscow | 51/51 | rudder failure pushed plane into dive |
| 23 December 1973 | USSR }45044 | USSR Lviv | 17/17 | left engine caught fire in flight |
| 3 January 1976 | USSR 45037 | USSR Moscow | 61/61 | instrument failure in clouds; crew lost orientation |
| 5 November 1977 | India V643 | India Jorhat Airport | 5/10 | one of the three Tu-124K VIP variants purchased by the Indian Air Force in 1966, named Pushpak Rath (Floral Chariot), crashed in a paddy field near Jorhat Airport, Assam. The then Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai who was on board survived, though five crew members died as a result of the crash.[11] |
| 29 August 1979 | USSR 45038 | USSR Kirsanov | 63/63 | flap failure on landing |
| February 1991 | Iraq YI-AEY | Iraq Bagdhad | 0/0 | destroyed on ground in Gulf War |
| February 1991 | Iraq YI-AEL | Iraq Bagdhad | 0/0 | destroyed on ground in Gulf War |
Data from Soviet Transport Aircraft since 1945[6]
General characteristics
Performance
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tupolev_Tu-124 Tupolev Tu-124] at Wikimedia Commons
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||