Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev and the Tupolev Company

Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev Aleksei Andreevich Tupolev

1. The Tupolev company is probably the most famous aeronautics firm, or design bureau, as it was called before. It is named after Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev, the man many historians consider the patriarch of the modern air industry. Almost all the major Soviet aviation designers of the mid-twentieth century, from fighter designer Pavel Sukhoi to space rocket designer Sergey Korolev served their apprenticeship under this legendary man.

2. Tupolev was born in 1888 and developed an early interest in aeronautics building gliders by the time he reached his early twenties. In 1918 he received his diploma as an “engineer-mechanic” based on a thesis for a design of a seaplane. Early in his career Tupolev was an advocate for introducing modern concepts into Russian aviation. On October 22, 1922 he founded a commission to design and develop all-metal aircraft for the Red Air Force.

3. Through the 1920s Tupolev’s team steadily gained respect and began to dominate the developing Soviet aviation industry. Despite poor health Tupolev had a strong personality that enabled him to define many important directions in Soviet aviation. For example, he introduced new concepts of testing prior to mass production. He was also opposed using foreign technology in Soviet aircraft unless it offered a major advantage. Tupolev’s initial steps into aircraft design led to the creation of a number of notable early Soviet airplanes such as the TB-1 (ANT-4) bomber, one of the largest planes built in the 1920s. Two of his aircraft from the period, the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky and the ANT-25, set world records for size and long-distance flights respectively. As the Tupolev team grew bigger, Tupolev’s Moscow-based Plant No. 156 formally separated from TsAGI.

4. Tupolev and several other members of his team designed a new twin-engine tactical bomber named the 103 (later named the Tu-2). The Soviet Air Force used the Tu-2 as the standard tactical bomber both during the war and for many years after. In the autumn of 1943 he reformed his old organization, known as the “OKB-156” (Experimental Design Bureau № 156).

The Tupolev Tu-20

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Tupolev developed the Soviet Union's first long-range strategic bomber, the swept-wing Tu-16. Soviet Air Force operated the bomber till the late 1980s. The Tu-16 was followed by the first very long-range strategic bomber, capable of intercontinental ranges — the swept-wing turboshaft Tu-95. Tupolev produced many different versions of the Tu-95 including one that was a missile carrier and another - a reconnaissance plane. In the same period Tupolev created the first Soviet jet airliner, the Tu-104, which caused a minor sensation in the West when it flew a high-level Soviet delegation to London in September 1956. Tupolev continued a parallel path of developing civilian airliners and military bombers using the same blueprint. For example, he used the Tu-95 to create one of the most famous Soviet passenger airplanes, the turboprop Tu-114, capable of carrying 220 passengers. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States in 1959 he arrived in a Tu-114. U.S. military officials were astonished that a turboprop airliner could achieve speeds of 800 kilometers per hour.

5. In the 1960s and 1970s the Tupolev organization introduced a new generation of strategic bombers, among them the Tu-22, the Tu-22M, and the Tu-160. These were in addition to several civilian passenger aircraft such as the 160-passenger Tu-154. One of the most spectacular additions to the Tupolev production line was the Tu-144, a supersonic airliner developed as a parallel to the Anglo-French Concorde. Although it was a remarkable technical achievement, the program was plagued by problems including a crash at the Paris Air Show in 1973. Tupolev did not witness the ultimate failure of the Tu-144. He died in his sleep in December 1972 at the age of 84.

The supersonic transport, Tupolev Tu-144.

6. Tupolev’s only son, Aleksei Tupolev, succeeded his father. In 1989 the design bureau took the name ANTK imeni A. N. Tupoleva (Aviation Scientific-Technical Complex Named After A. N. Tupolev). It had about 10,500 employees in the late 1990s. It traditionally contributed about 80 percent of the short- and medium-range passenger airplanes in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, but later this number declined due to economic instability. Although its primary products were civilian passenger aircraft, the Tupolev organization also produced freight aircraft, unpiloted aerial vehicles, and incorporated improvements to its older military bombers.

Over the course of its lifetime the Tupolev design bureau produced more than half of all passenger aircraft operated by the former Soviet Union. These included 80 projects, 35 of which went into mass production.