Quotulatiousness

May 7, 2026

Tu-144 Concordeski – Speed, Spies and Failure

HardThrasher
Published 4 May 2026

In great secrecy, in 1963 the USSR set about making aviation history with the world’s first Supersonic Transport (SST). In 1968, five months before Concorde, the Tu-144 became the first passenger jet to break the sound barrier. But it was a white elephant that crashed on multiple occasions, killed hundreds and flew for just a matter of months after over a decade of development. It was, perhaps the first of a string of failures that brought down the Soviet Union.

00:00 – 11:06 – Introduction and Background
11:07 – 23:10 – The Decision is made to build
23:10 – 35:31 – And then it got worse — how everything fell apart
35:32 – 39:10 – The En Crashening — From First Flight to Constant Crashes
39:11 – 48:49 – Enter the KGB — What role did spies play
49:22 – End – Like, Subscribe, Join the Patreon

Anthem by Shittyflute – / @shittyflute

I can be found here
Twitter – https://x.com/LordHardThrashe
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/lordhardthra…
Patreon – patreon.com/LordHardThrasher
Merch – https://hardthrasher-shop.fourthwall….

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress