Tupolev Tu-104

Tu-104
Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-104B at Arlanda Airport in 1972
Role	Narrow-body jet airliner
Manufacturer	Tupolev OKB
Designer	Andrei Tupolev
First flight	17 June 1955
Introduction	15 September 1956 (Aeroflot)
Retired	1986
Primary users	Aeroflot ČSA
Produced	1956–1960
Number built	201
Developed from	Tupolev Tu-16
Variants	Tupolev Tu-110 Tupolev Tu-124

Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-104B at Arlanda Airport in 1968.

The Tupolev Tu-104 (NATO reporting name: Camel) was a twin-engined medium-range narrow-body turbojet-powered Soviet airliner and the world's first successful jet airliner. Although it was the sixth jet airliner to fly (following, in order, the British Vickers Type 618 Nene-Viking, de Havilland Comet , Canadian Avro Canada C102 Jetliner, US Boeing 367-80 and French Sud Caravelle), the Tu-104 was the second to enter regular service (with Aeroflot) and the first to provide a sustained and successful service (the Comet which had entered service in 1952, was withdrawn from 1954-1958 following a series of crashes due to structural failure). The Tu-104 was the sole jetliner operating in the world between 1956 and 1958.^[1]

In 1957, Czechoslovak Airlines – ČSA, (now Czech Airlines) became the first airline in the world to fly a route exclusively with jet airliners, using the Tu-104A variant between Prague and Moscow. In civil service, the Tu-104 carried over 90 million passengers with Aeroflot (then the world's largest airline), and a lesser number with ČSA, while it also saw operations with the Soviet Air Force. Its successors include the Tu-124 (one of the first turbofan-powered airliners), the Tu-134 and the Tu-154.

Design and development

At the beginning of the 1950s, the Soviet Union's Aeroflot airline needed a modern airliner with better capacity and performance than the piston-engined aircraft then in operation. The design request was filled by the Tupolev OKB, which based their new airliner on its Tu-16 'Badger' strategic bomber. The wings, engines, and tail surfaces of the Tu-16 were retained in the airliner, but the new design adopted a wider, pressurised fuselage designed to accommodate 50 passengers. The prototype (SSSR-L5400) first flew on June 17, 1955 with Yu.L. Alasheyev at the controls at the Kharkov plant in Ukraine. It was fitted with drag chutes to shorten the landing distance by up to 400 metres (1,300 ft), since at the time, not many airports had sufficiently long runways.^[1]

The arrival of the Tu-104 in London during a 1956 state visit by Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev totally surprised Western observers who, at the time, thought the Soviets lacked the advanced technology required to build a commercial airliner with such performance.^[1] By the time production ceased in 1960, about 200 had been built.

The Tu-104 was powered by two Mikulin AM-3 turbojets placed at the wing/fuselage junction (remotely resembling the solution used on the de Havilland Comet). The crew consisted of 5 people: two pilots, a navigator (placed in the glazed "bomber" nose), a flight engineer and a radio operator (the radio operator was later eliminated). The airplane raised great curiosity by its lavish "Victorian" interior – called so by some Western-hemisphere observers – due to the materials used: mahogany, copper and lace.^[1]

Tu-104 pilots were trained on the Il-28 bomber, followed by mail flights on an unarmed Tu-16 bomber painted in Aeroflot colors, between Moscow and Sverdlovsk. Pilots with previous Tu-16 experience transitioned into the Tu-104 with relative ease. The Tu-104 was considered tricky to fly, as it was heavy on controls and quite fast on finals, at low speeds it would display a tendency to stall, a feature common with highly-swept wings. Experience with the Tu-104 led the Tupolev Design Bureau to develop the world's first turbofan series-built airliner Tupolev Tu-124, designed for local markets, and subsequently the more commercially successful Tu-134

Operational history

On September 15, 1956, the Tu-104 began revenue service on Aeroflot's Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route, replacing the piston-engined Ilyushin Il-14. The flight time was reduced from 13 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 40 minutes, and the new jet dramatically increased the level of passenger comfort.^[1] By 1957, Aeroflot had placed the Tu-104 in service on routes from Vnukovo Airport in Moscow to London, Budapest, Copenhagen, Beijing, Brussels, Ottawa, Delhi, and Prague.

In 1957, ČSA Czechoslovak Airlines became the only export customer for the Tu-104, placing the aircraft on routes to Moscow, Paris and Brussels. ČSA bought six Tu-104As (four new and two used examples) configured for 81 passengers. Three of these aircraft were subsequently written off (one due to a refuelling incident in India and another to a pilot error without fatalities).^[1]

In 1959, the plane was leased to Sir Henry Lunn Ltd. (Lunn Poly) of London which used the plane for 12 holidays to Russia and boasted of a 4.5 hours flight.

The Tu-104 continued to be used by Aeroflot throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Some 16 aircraft were lost in crashes (some due to hijackings/bombings).^[1] The safety record is comparable to other early jet airliners of its day, but was poor compared to more modern airliners. Aeroflot retired the Tu-104 from civil service in March 1979 following a fatal accident at Moscow. Following this, several aircraft were transferred to the Soviet military, which used them as staff transports and to train cosmonauts in zero gravity. However, after a Tu-104 crash in February 1981 killed 52 people (17 of whom were senior army and naval staff), the type was permanently removed from service. The last flight of the Tu-104 was a ferry flight to Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum in 1986.

A Tu-104 near Vnukovo Airport

Variants

Data from: ^[1]

• Tu-104 – initial version seating 50 passengers. It used two Mikulin AM-3 turbojet engines, each with 6,735 kg of thrust. 29 airframes were built.
• Tu-104 2NK-8 – Proposed version powered by two Kuznetsov NK-8 turbofan engines.
• Tu-104A – Improved version appearing in June 1957; continued improvements of the Mikulin engines (Mikulin AM-3M each with 8,700 kg of thrust) permitted significant growth in capacity, resulting in a 70-seater variant. The Tu-104A became the definitive production variant. On September 6, 1957, it flew with 20 t of payload at 11,211 m of altitude. On September 24, 1957, it reached 970.8 km/h average speed with a 2 tonne payload. A total of 80 airframes were built, of which six were exported to Czechoslovakia.
• Tu-104AK – one unit modified for Zero-G Cosmonaut training
• Tu-104B – Further improvements made by stretching fuselage 1.2 meters and fitting new Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojets (9,700 kg of thrust each). The Tu-104B was able to accommodate 100 passengers. This variant took advantage of the newer fuselage from the Tu-110 and the existing wings. It began revenue service with Aeroflot on April 15, 1959 on the Moscow-Saint Petersburg route. A total of 95 airframes were built. Most were later rebuilt to Tu-104V-115 standard.
• Tu-104D – VIP version with two sleeper cabins forward and a 39-seat cabin aft.
• Tu-104D-85 – Tu-104A airframes rebuilt to accommodate 85 passengers.
• Tu-104D 3NK-8 – Project powered by three NK-8 engines, precursor of Tu-154.
• Tu-104E – A higher performance Tu-104 powered by RD-16-15 engines giving better fuel economy as well as higher thrust. Two prototypes were converted from Tu-104B's CCCP-42441 and CCCP-42443, but the program was cancelled in the mid-1960s in favor of the Tu-154.
• Tu-104G – VIP version for the Federal government with two VIP cabins forward and a 54-seat cabin aft.
• Tu-104LL – Several serial numbers converted for use in testing Tu-129, Tu-22M electronics, and air-to-air missile systems (including launch).
• Tu-104SH – Navigator trainer in two versions
• Tu-104V – The first use of this designation was for a projected 117 seat medium haul version with six-abreast seating. Project cancelled.
• Tu-104V – The second use of this designation was used for Tu-104A airframes rebuilt to accommodate 100/105 passengers. A later version packed 115 passengers in by reducing seat pitch and adding seat rows.
• Tu-104V-115 – Tu-104B airframes rebuilt to accommodate 115 passengers, with new radio and navigational equipment.
• Tu-107 – Proposed military transport version with rear loading ramp and defensive turret armed with paired cannon. One prototype built; project cancelled
• Tu-110 – Four-engined version intended for export. A number of prototypes were built; project cancelled.
• Tu-118 – A projected turboprop cargo version powered by Kuznetsov TV-2F engines.

Former operators

CSA Czechoslovak Airlines Tupolev Tu-104A at Arlanda Airport in 1971.

 Czechoslovakia

• CSA Czechoslovak Airlines – Six aircraft.
• Czechoslovakian Air Force

 Mongolia

• Military of Mongolia

 Soviet Union

• Aeroflot
• Soviet Air Force

Accidents and incidents

According to the American Flight Safety Foundation, between 1958 and 1981, 16 Tu-104s were lost in crashes out of 37 aircraft written off (hull loss rate = 18%).^[2]

Date	Tail number	Aircraft type	Location	Casualties	Description	Refs
000000001958-02-19-000019 February 1958	CCCP-Л5414	Tu-104	Savasleyka	5000000000000000000♠0/3	Force-landed short of the runway after running out of fuel following a diversion.	[3]
000000001958-08-15-000015 August 1958	CCCP-Л5442	Tu-104A	Chita	7001640000000000000♠64/64	Aeroflot Flight 4 stalled, spun down and crashed after entering an updraft at 12,000 m (39,000 ft).	[4][5]
000000001958-10-17-000017 October 1958	CCCP-42362	Tu-104A	Kanash	7001800000000000000♠80/80	Entered a dive and crashed after entering an updraft at 12,000 m (39,000 ft). The Tu-104 was limited to 9,000 m (30,000 ft) and the tail modified in the wake of this accident.	[6]
000000001960-10-20-000020 October 1960	CCCP-42452	Tu-104A	Ust-Orda	7000300000000000000♠3/68	Aeroflot Flight 5 struck sloping terrain and crashed while the pilot was checking the landing lights.	[7][8]
000000001961-02-01-00001 February 1961	CCCP-42357	Tu-104A	Vladivostok	5000000000000000000♠0	Overran runway after landing too late.	[9]
000000001961-03-16-000016 March 1961	CCCP-42438	Tu-104B	near Koltsovo	7000700000000000000♠7/51	Aeroflot Flight 68 force-landed on a frozen pond following double engine failure. Two people on the ground also died when a house was struck by the aircraft.	[10][11]
000000001961-07-10-000010 July 1961	CCCP-42447	Tu-104B	Odessa	7000100000000000000♠1/94	Aeroflot Flight 381 crashed after entering downdrafts while landing in bad weather.	[12][13]
000000001961-09-17-000017 September 1961	CCCP-42388	Tu-104A	Tashkent	5000000000000000000♠0	Heavy landing; written off.	[14]
000000001961-11-02-00002 November 1961	CCCP-42504	Tu-104B	Vladivostok	5000000000000000000♠0	Struck a radio antenna while on approach and force-landed in a field following engine failure.	[15]
000000001962-06-04-00004 June 1962	CCCP-42491	Tu-104B	Sofia	7000500000000000000♠5/5	Struck a mountain following engine failure.	[16]
000000001962-06-30-000030 June 1962	CCCP-42370	Tu-104A	Krasnoyarsk Krai	7001840000000000000♠84/84	Aeroflot Flight 902 crashed after it was accidentally shot down by a missile.	[17]
000000001962-09-03-00003 September 1962	CCCP-42366	Tu-104A	Khabarovsk	7001860000000000000♠86/86	Aeroflot Flight 3 lost control at 4,500 m (14,800 ft) while climbing. Although the cause was not determined, issues with the autopilot were blamed. An accidental shoot-down by a missile was also theorized.	[18][19]
000000001962-10-25-000025 October 1962	CCCP-42495	Tu-104B	Sheremetyevo	7001110000000000000♠11/11	Crashed on takeoff during a test flight due to cross-connected rudder controls.	[20]
000000001963-03-16-000016 March 1963	OK-LDB	Tu-104A	Santa Cruz Airport	Unknown	Caught fire while being refueled.	[21]
000000001963-05-18-000018 May 1963	CCCP-42483	Tu-104B	Leningrad	5000000000000000000♠0	Stalled on approach and crashed.	[22]
000000001963-07-13-000013 July 1963	CCCP-42492	Tu-104B	near Irkutsk Airport	7001330000000000000♠33/35	Aeroflot Flight 12 crashed short of the runway due to incorrect instrument readings. Water entered the instrument wiring, causing a short circuit.	[23][24]
000000001964-06-09-00009 June 1964	CCCP-42476	Tu-104B	Novosibirsk	Unknown	Overshot runway in heavy rain during second landing attempt.	[25]
000000001969-04-28-000028 April 1969	CCCP-42436	Tu-104B	Irkutsk	Unknown	Landed 600 m (2,000 ft) short of runway; written off.	[26]
000000001970-06-01-00001 June 1970	OK-NDD	Tu-104A	Tripoli	7001130000000000000♠13/13	Crashed short of the runway after the pilot attempted an approach to runway 36.	[27]
000000001971-07-25-000025 July 1971	CCCP-42405	Tu-104B	Irkutsk	7001970000000000000♠97/126	Aeroflot Flight 1912 landed 500 ft (150 m) short of the runway; breaking off the left wing. The aircraft rolled to the left and caught fire.	[28][29]
000000001971-10-10-000010 October 1971	CCCP-42490	Tu-104B	Vnukovo	7001250000000000000♠25/25	Aeroflot Flight 773 crashed shortly after takeoff after an explosion occurred while climbing through 1,200 m (3,900 ft). The explosion damaged the fuselage and destroyed flight controls. Control was lost and the aircraft rolled right and entered a descent until it struck the ground. The explosion was caused by a bomb placed between the cabin wall and a passenger seat in the rear of the cabin near frame 45.	[30][31]
000000001972-03-19-000019 March 1972	CCCP-42408	Tu-104B	Omsk	5000000000000000000♠0	Struck a snow wall short of the runway during the fifth landing attempt.	[32]
000000001973-04-24-000024 April 1973	CCCP-42505	Tu-104B	Leningrad	7000200000000000000♠2/57	Hijacked by a passenger who demanded to be taken to Sweden. The crew returned to Leningrad. While the landing gear was lowered, the hijacker set off a bomb, killing himself and the flight engineer. The bomb blew a hole in the fuselage, but the aircraft was able to land safely.	[33][34]
000000001973-05-18-000018 May 1973	CCCP-42411	Tu-104B	Buryat ASSR	7001820000000000000♠82/82	Aeroflot Flight 109 was hijacked by a passenger who demanded to be taken to China. A bomb that the hijacker had put on board the aircraft detonated at 30,000 ft (9,100 m) and the aircraft lost control and crashed east of Lake Baikal.	[35][36]
000000001973-08-29-000029 August 1973	OK-MDE	Tu-104A	Nicosia	5000000000000000000♠0/70	Veered off the runway after landing after the pilot failed to stop the aircraft in time. The wreckage remains at the airport site to this day.	[37]
000000001973-09-30-000030 September 1973	CCCP-42506	Tu-104B	Sverdlovsk	7002108000000000000♠108/108	Aeroflot Flight 3932 crashed shortly after takeoff due to a power failure of the artificial horizons.	[38]
000000001973-10-13-000013 October 1973	CCCP-42486	Tu-104B	Domodedovo	7002122000000000000♠122/122	Aeroflot Flight 964 crashed while on approach following a power failure to the compass system and main gyros and resulting loss of control. The crash is the worst involving the Tu-104.	[39]
000000001973-12-07-00007 December 1973	CCCP-42503	Tu-104B	near Moscow	7001160000000000000♠16/75	Aeroflot Flight 964 crashed after a wing struck the ground after coming in too fast.	[40][41]
000000001974-11-05-00005 November 1974	CCCP-42501	Tu-104B	Chita	5000000000000000000♠0	Overran the runway on landing and came to rest against a railway embankment.	[42]
000000001975-08-30-000030 August 1975	CCCP-42472	Tu-104B	Tolmachevo Airport	5000000000000000000♠0	Right landing gear collapsed following a heavy landing.	[43]
000000001976-02-09-00009 February 1976	CCCP-42327	Tu-104A	Irkutsk	7001240000000000000♠24/115	Aeroflot Flight 3739 crashed after banking to the right while climbing for takeoff and entering a descent. Debris from the aircraft struck a North Korean Tu-154 that had just landed. Although the official cause of the accident was loss of control caused by crosswinds, improper fueling (too much fuel on one side) and pilot error were also theorized.	[44][45]
000000001976-07-17-000017 July 1976	CCCP-42335	Tu-104A	Chita Airport	5000000000000000000♠0	Failed to take off and crashed due to overloading.	[46]
000000001976-11-28-000028 November 1976	CCCP-42471	Tu-104B	near Sheremetyevo	7001720000000000000♠72/72	Aeroflot Flight 2415 lost control and crashed following artificial horizon failure and resulting crew disorientation.	[47][48]
000000001976-01-01-00001976	CCCP-42371	Tu-104A	Borispol Airport	Unknown	Crashed short of the runway after the engines were shut down in flight.	[49]
000000001977-01-13-000013 January 1977	CCCP-42369	Tu-104A	Alma-Ata	7001960000000000000♠96/96	Aeroflot Flight 3843 exploded in mid-air due to an engine fire.	[50][51]
000000001979-03-17-000017 March 1979	CCCP-42444	Tu-104B	near Moscow	7001580000000000000♠58/119	While operating as Aeroflot Flight 1691, the crew encountered a false fire alarm from engine during takeoff and turned back to Vnukovo. The plane crashed while attempting to return to the airport. Aeroflot removed the Tu-104 from service following this accident.	[52]
000000001981-02-07-00007 February 1981	CCCP-42332	Tu-104A	Pushkin	7001510000000000000♠51/51	Soviet Navy flight; failed to takeoff due to shifting cargo. All military Tu-104's were grounded following this accident.	[53]

Wreckage of the Czechoslovak Airlines Tupolev Tu-104 (OK-MDE) near Nicosia airport

Specifications (Tu-104B)

Data from Gordon and Rigmant^[54][55]

General characteristics

• Crew: 7
• Capacity: 50–115 passengers
• Length: 40.05 m (131 ft 5 in)
• Wingspan: 34.54 m (113 ft 4 in)
• Height: 11.90 m (39 ft 0 in)
• Wing area: 184 m² (1,975 ft²)
• Empty weight: 43,800 kg (96,560 lb)
• Loaded weight: 78,100 kg (172,180 lb)
• Powerplant: 2 × Mikulin AM-3M-500 turbojets, 95.1 kN (21,400 lbf) each

Performance

• Maximum speed: 950 km/h (513 knots, 590 mph)
• Cruise speed: 800 km/h (432 knots, 497 mph)
• Range: 2,750 km (1,485 nm, 1,709 mi)
• Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)
• Rate of climb: 10 m/s (1,969 ft/min)

See also

Related development

• Tupolev Tu-16
• Tupolev Tu-107
• Tupolev Tu-110
• Tupolev Tu-124

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

• de Havilland Comet
• Boeing 707

Related lists

• List of jet airliners

References

• Aviation Safety Network entry

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tupolev Tu-104.

• Aerospaceweb.org
• contemporary analysis in Flight journal