Tupolev Tu-124

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Tupolev Tu-124
Tupolev Tu-124W of Aeroflot
Tupolev Tu-124W of Aeroflot
Type: Short-haul aircraft
Design country:

Soviet Union 1955Soviet Union Soviet Union

Manufacturer:

OKB Tupolev

First flight:

March 29, 1960

Commissioning:

2nd October 1962

Number of pieces:

165

The Tupolev Tu-124 ( Russian Туполев Ту-124 , NATO code name " Cookpot ") is a twin- engine passenger aircraft made by the Soviet design office Tupolev .

history

Cockpit of a Tupolev Tu-124Sh
Cabin of a Tupolev Tu-124Sh

Despite the outward resemblance to the Tu-104 , the Tupolev Tu-124 is a much smaller aircraft, which was primarily designed to replace the outdated IL-14 on intra-Soviet routes. The dimensions of the Tu-124 are around three quarters of those of the Tu-104, from which the Tu-124 also differs through the much lower retractable nose wheel landing gear .

The first of two prototypes (СССР-45000, WNr. 0 35 01 01) of the Tu-124 designed under the direction of Alexander Alexandrovich Archangelsky took off on March 24, 1960 for the first flight . The second prototype, СССР-45001 (WNr. 0 35 01 02), followed in June 1960. Two other aircraft received civilian license plates, but were never flown and served as static test cells.

construction

The Tu-124 is an all-metal aircraft designed as a low-wing aircraft. The fuselage has a circular cross-section and has an air-conditioned pressurized cabin . The navigator's workstation is located in the glazed nose of the fuselage. The radar is housed in a tub under the fuselage.

The wings are heavily swept for a flight in the high subsonic range and have a negative V-angle in order to reduce the undesirably high directional stability of the swept wing. However, this leads to a relatively low ground clearance and restricts take-offs and landings in strong crosswinds. Since, for reasons of material, the wings are very thick in relation to the wing extension, there is a risk that the flow will migrate to the wing tips and thus a reduction in lift. To counter this, two boundary layer fences are arranged on the upper side of the wing. The engines are integrated into the wings. The complicated introduction of forces caused by this construction leads to a spar construction going through the fuselage, which in turn leads to a cabin floor raised in the middle part.

The wings have normal ailerons at the ends. The split landing flaps are designed as double slotted flaps on the outside. The Tu-124 has a fuselage flap to increase the resistance on approach. The club-shaped cladding to accommodate the main landing gear act in accordance with the area rule.

The vertical stabilizer is constructed in a normal construction.

The chassis is designed as a classic three-point chassis. The double-tyred nose wheel pulls back into the fuselage. The main landing gear has four wheels attached to a slide and pulls backwards into the club-shaped panels on the wings. The design of the landing gear, in particular the multiple tires and the wide track of the main landing gear, allow the use of unpaved runways.

The aircraft is the first Soviet aircraft to have dual-circuit engines (ZTL). The Tu-124 is designed for high flight speeds. The less than optimal accommodation of the engines, derived from the Tu-104 and Tu-16, leads to increased vibrations, which has a negative impact on comfort in the passenger cabin and the service life of the aircraft's components.

The standard seating of the basic version was 44 seats.

use

On October 2, 1962, the new type of Aeroflot was put into service on the Moscow - Tallinn route and impressed with its very good operational flight performance. The Tu-124W, which had an interior for 56 passengers, was the export model and appeared in 1964. The Czechoslovakian ČSA bought two such machines in the same year, to which another copy was added in 1965. The Tu-124W was in service with ČSA until 1972 and was then sold to Iraqi Airways , which used the aircraft on behalf of the Air Force for VIP flights until 1975.

The air forces the NVA used three Tu-124, two of which interflight were provided -Bemalung and -flag. The station was the TG-44 at Neuhardenberg airfield . After Interflug's IL-62 machines were temporarily banned from take-off after a machine of this type crashed , Interflug suffered from capacity bottlenecks. Therefore, the Tu-124 aircraft of the NVA were used as a substitute on regular inter-flight routes. All three machines were decommissioned in 1975 and sold to the Soviet Union.

Under the type designation Tu-124K, three machines (K1, K2 and K3) with VIP equipment for 22 to 36 passengers were built in 1966, but not taken over by Aeroflot . They were acquired by the Indian Air Force in October of the same year and used there until 1978. At Aeroflot, the Tu-124 was in use until January 21, 1980, when the last twelve machines were decommissioned. The Soviet Air Force used the aircraft type until 1981.

A total of 112 series machines were built.

Incidents

The Tu-124 was one of the few ditching without personal injury. In 1963, an Aeroflot Tu-124 failed to fully retract its landing gear after taking off from Tallinn . However, the airport had already been closed due to fog ; therefore the pilots wanted to land the plane in Leningrad on a gravel road. The pilots were instructed by ground control to use fuel while making circles in the vicinity of Leningrad in order to reduce the aircraft's landing weight. Due to a defective fuel display, the aircraft made eight circles before the crew noticed that the fuel displays did not indicate any reduction. At the same time, one of the engines failed. The crew were given permission to fly over the city to reach Pulkovo Airport . After deploying the second engine, the commander decided to ditch on the Neva , which was made more difficult by the relatively close spaced bridges. The 52 inmates all got away with the horror. The crew was declared innocent and the airport management was blamed for granting a non-fueled aircraft permission to fly over the city. The captain and crew were honored with awards.

Technical specifications

Parameter Tu-124W
crew 3-4
Passengers 56
length 30.58 m
Wingspan 25.55 m
height 8.08 m
Wing area 119.37 m²
Wing extension 5.5
Wing swept 35 °
Trunk width 2.90 m
cabin Length: 11.23 m
Width: 2.70 m
Height: 1.95 m
Volume: 50.15 m³
Cargo hold volume 14.00 m³
Empty mass 22,900 kg
payload 6,000 kg
Takeoff mass maximum 37,500 kg
Wing loading 306.7 kg / m²
Power load 3.38 kg / kp
Cruising speed Max. 870 km / h
economical 800 km / h
Top speed 970 km / h at an altitude of 8,000 m
Landing speed 190 km / h
Service ceiling 11,700 m
Range 1250 km with max. Payload
2100 km with max. Fuel supply and 3,000 kg payload
Engines two jet engines Solovyov D-20P
power 5400 kp (52.92 kN) thrust each
Tank volume 13,120 l

Preserved copies

Several machines of this type are in various collections, such as the Chinese Aviation Museum Datang Shan Beijing , the Museum of Civil Aviation in Ulyanovsk and the Central Museum of the Air Force of the Russian Federation in Monino . A Tu-124K is also on display at the airport in New Delhi .

See also

literature

  • Heinz AF Schmidt: Soviet planes . Transpress, Berlin 1971, p. 73 .

Web links

Commons : Tupolev Tu-124  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Detlef Billig, Manfred Meyer: Aircraft of the GDR - Volume II until 1972. Motorbuch, Friedland 2002, ISBN 3-613-02241-9 , p. 121.
  2. Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
  3. Reports on the ditching in 1963 (Russian) at http://www.nevariver.ru/airplane.php , accessed on January 5, 2017