Tu-154M still will fly

The passenger airplane Tu-154M, which became the most common jet in the Soviet Union , was conceived as a replacement for the Il-18 and An-10, which in the early sixties formed the basis of the Aeroflot fleet. A new, faster, more economical and comfortable machine was needed, much like the American Boeing 727.

The similarity of technical requirements dictated a similar scheme - a monoplane with a swept low wing, a tail unit with stabilizers above the elevator and three engines: one integrated central and two on pylon brackets along the sides of the tail section of the fuselage.

In 1968, the Tu-154 was raised to the sky. Four years later, in 1972, commercial exploitation began on the Moscow-Mineralnye Vody line.

The first modification was called Tu-154 A. The improvement consisted mainly of installing NK-2-U engines - more powerful than expected in the initial version.

Since 1976, the liner has been modified again, this time the changes were more ambitious, they underwent both the mechanization of the wing, and the passenger cabin, and on-board equipment. In this form, the aircraft became known as the Tu-154B and was manufactured until 1981. Although it was originally proposed to rename it to Tu-164, design improvements were so significant. With scheduled repairs, the airliners of the early issues were re-equipped to the technical level of the latest modification.

However, the stresses arising in the glider continued to cause criticism of the technicians serving the aircraft. During each of the flights rivets fell out of the shell, they had to be restored. This defect, as well as a number of other problems, was eliminated during the third main (and in all there were more than two dozen) modifications.

In 1984, the work on the creation of the Tu-154M was completed. These liners were built more than three hundred. The result was an excellent aircraft. The number of passengers increased to 180 people, and the reliability of the liner significantly increased. Evidence of the "survivability" of the aircraft in difficult conditions was a masterfully executed landing at an abandoned airfield near the city of Ukhta in 2010, when the pilots managed to save the lives of passengers with complete failure of the on-board electrical equipment. The Tu-154M was restored, its operation continued.

The catastrophe of the Polish Air Force's presidential airplane in Smolensk that occurred the same year gave rise to talk about the unreliability of Soviet-made aircraft, but the investigation proved that it was caused by the pilot's compulsion to land in difficult weather conditions in which any modern, Yourself about the same.

In general, it is believed that the TU-154 M's motor resource allows it to serve a quarter of a century or stay in the air fifteen thousand hours. The cruising ceiling is more than 12 kilometers, and the speed is 900 km / h. At the disposal of many airlines in Russia, near and far abroad, aircraft that are well-made and capable of carrying passenger traffic can be upgraded, equipped with digital avionics and even after some refinement to use liquefied gas as fuel . Since the late nineties, the KB. A.N. Tupolev proposes to carry out work to extend the life of the engine and bring the Tu-154M to the level of modern requirements for airliners. There are customers.