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Supersonic 2 Supersonic Commercial Air Travel When you think of supersonic commercial air travel the Concorde probably comes to mind. There was also another that was not as successful as the Concorde therefore it often goes unmentioned in the realm of supersonic commercial air travel; it is the Tu-144 Tupolev, the Russian’s attempt at being the first to offer supersonic commercial travel. Both airframes experienced numerous setbacks, of them the most importantly noted were there efficiency, the sonic boom they produced at supersonic speeds, and most importantly their price. The Tu-144 was named after its inventor, Andrei N. Tupolev and actually beat the Concorde into flight by 2 months. The Tupolev looked so much like the Concorde that the British called it the “Concordski” and had many suspicions of the Russians industrial espionage. Though the Tu was slightly larger and had a claimed speed of 1,500 miles per hour which was slightly faster than the concord; previously the Soviet commercial aircraft had not really posed a significant threat to Western manufacturers and the Tu-1