Supersonic Tu-444 planes to appear soon

Russian aerospace breakthrough: private supersonic jet and cryogenic fuel for normal passengers planes.

Humankind will be able to conquer sky and space finally in this century. Scientists, engineers and futurists claim the XXI century would bring advances undreamed by Rite brothers.

Russian leading airplane construction company “Tupolev” commented on their view of the future of aviation.

In short, the prognosis is: higher, faster, bigger.

The XXI century airplanes will be supersonic, have up to 600 seats and very soon people would be able to fly into space. Many engineers and futurists believe that passenger flights to the Moon and Mars will be possible.

European consortium Airbus announced serial production of new A-380 with 550 passenger seats by 2006. Futurists predict 1000-sears planes.

In “Tupolev”, the world’s oldest plane construction bureau, such plans are taken skeptically.

“Airbus will have to have hundreds of orders for such a massive project to break even. They claim, of course, to have some dozens, but it is clearly not enough. A-380 would doubtfully be commercially successful.

This is why we had frozen construction of our own alike planes. Given the current passenger mass, ten such planes would be enough for the entire country, and many billions would be lost.

We had a project of similar double-deck liner of analogous capacity, but it would not be build any time soon out of these financial considerations.”

Ideas for big, super-capacity passenger planes is not welcomed between Russian aviators. A much more promising they see construction of small, private supersonic aircraft.

This project has already got the name: soon the sky can meet Tu-444, administrative supersonic jets. This business-class airplane for 6-8 people was presented recently in Czech.

In “Tupolev” they think that business-class jets have great future, despite of their high costs. Tu-44, for example, would be priced around US$50mln.

The Russian engineers agree that aviation’s golden age is coming. And Russian aviation welcomes it fully prepared. While on the West the golden age is marked with appearance of exotic aircrafts, our country is more pragmatic here.

In close future planes will use cryogenic fuel. Companies threatened by oil market situation actively seek for alternatives. “Tupolev” engineers think such can be hydrogen and the liquefied gas.

Liquid hydrogen possesses certain characteristics useful in aviation. First of all, it is a high heat of combustion, great resistance to cold and ecological cleanliness. This fuel allows substantial advances of aircraft to be made, achieving speeds of over 7200kmh.

All necessary tests were done, and the needed infrastructure is designed to switch some Russian planes to cryogenic fuel. The first in line are likely to be Tu-334 and Tu-204.

Source: www.newsru.com