At the time when the supersonic passenger transport was all the rage three countries took a step forward to try to be the first ones to perfect it. The United States had Boeing who eventually fell out of the supersonic race, Europe who partnered to build Concorde, and the Soviet Union who stole Concorde technical drawings to make their own, the TU-144.
The Concorde flew for many years up until 2003 when it was not financially viable to fly it any longer, while its competitor didn’t even last longer than a year. If you look at it Concorde did everything right to make it the most popular supersonic transporter in the world, while primitive technology turned the TU-144 into more of a show piece.
One of the things take made Concorde so great was that it could span long distances by way of not using afterburners to sustain supersonic flight. The TU-144 couldn’t overcome this problem and thus was left with a reduced range and noisy cabin.
This video shows just how inferior the TU-144 was to Concorde.
