Alexei Tupolev, the designer of the Russian version of Concorde, has died at the age of 75 after a long illness. He was most famous for the Tu-144, a Soviet supersonic aircraft which so closely resembled Concorde it was nicknamed Concordski. It made its maiden flight on December 31 1968, days before its Western rival, but a crash at the Paris air show in 1973 effectively ended any international appeal it might have had. A modified Tu-144 briefly operated between Moscow and the Central Asian city of Almaty, but was quietly shelved after a second crash in 1977 which killed three people.
Mr Tupolev also helped to design mass-built passenger jets such as the Tupolev 134, which remains a cornerstone of the Russian air fleet, as well as the Buran space shuttle, which carried out one flight into space in 1988, but was then scrapped due to funding problems. "A glowing memory about Alexei Andreyevich Tupolev, a wonderful man and aircraft constructor, will remain forever in our hearts," said the Tupolev company in a statement.
