Tupolev, Aleksey Andreyevich

▪ 2002

      Russian aircraft designer (b. May 20, 1925, Moscow, U.S.S.R.—d. May 12, 2001, Moscow, Russia), designed many of the Soviet Union's most successful jet airplanes, including the Tu-104 (the country's first commercial jetliner), the Tu-134, and the Tu-154, as well as the Tu-26 medium-range bomber and the Tu-160 swing-wing long-range strategic bomber; however, his most ambitious enterprise, the world's first supersonic passenger jet, the Tu-144, ended in failure. Tupolev became chief designer at Tupolev Design Bureau in 1963 and succeeded his father, the celebrated aircraft designer Andrey N. Tupolev, as chief of the design bureau in 1972. The Tu-144 had its first test flight in 1968, two months before the Concorde, and flew more than 100 scheduled flights within the Soviet Union, but fatal crashes in 1973 and 1977 spelled the project's end.

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