The prospective Russian supersonic aircraft will not be intended for regular airlines, but rather for business aviation. Aviation expert Roman Gusarov told "Perviy Technicheskiy" about this.
According to him, this project is not about a liner the size of the Soviet Tu-144, but about a much smaller aircraft.
The supersonic aircraft will be the size of business jets. Most likely, it's more of a luxury, it will be useful in business aviation, not in regular flights. If it takes four hours to fly from Vladivostok to the USA, that's just great. From the point of view of the airframe, I don't see any particular difficulties for development.
Gusarov emphasized that the experience of creating the Tu-144 cannot be considered unsuccessful, the aircraft flew successfully, but its development was influenced by economic factors.
In the West, people could fly in economy class at the price of business class. But in the USSR there were no such wealthy people, only workers. Therefore, the operation of the Tu-144 was discontinued, another point is the engines, their reliability and service life. It is difficult to maintain such installations.
The N.E. Zhukovsky National Research Center noted that when developing the supersonic aircraft project, engineers will use the experience gained during the creation of the Tu-144 in the 1970s of the last century.
