Alexi Tupolev; Russian Aircraft Designer Built Supersonic Passenger Jet

Alexi Tupolev, 76, a Russian aircraft designer who helped build the first Soviet supersonic passenger jet and the Soviet space shuttle, died Saturday in Moscow.

The son of aircraft pioneer Andrei Tupolev, who created the Soviet Union’s first passenger jet, Alexi Tupolev headed work on the Tu-144, the Soviet equivalent of the British-French Concorde, from 1963 through its first flight in 1968. The Soviet supersonic jet, nicknamed Concordsky, fell into disuse after a Tu-144 crashed at a Paris air show in 1973 and because of its high cost and design flaws.

The Tu-160 jet nuclear bomber was later made on a prototype of the Tu-144.

A veteran developer of both military and civilian aircraft, Tupolev also helped build the Tu-2000, the Soviet version of a space shuttle modeled on the U.S. aircraft. The Soviet version made one unmanned test flight in 1988 before it was abandoned for lack of funds.