Tupolev Tu-154 History| The Forgotten Trijet

[@vladilenkalatschev4915]

My dad was a co-pilot and a captain of TU-154 from 1980 to 1997

[@redbaron9029]

17 good years ❤

[@sandeepsreehari4687]

I'm sure his career was honored

[@draoi99]

What a great place to work!

[@CairnTerrier69]

My ride all over Central Europe back in 1992 care of CSA when we vacationed in Czech, Switzerland, and Italy. Actually a very nice aircraft.

[@Chronograph71]

Thank you! This plane was definitely a true workhorse of its time and region.

[@adriannegrillo8394]

Great looking jet!

[@draoi99]

6:08 I looked through the list of incidents and noticed a lot of the Tuplolev-154 crashes were also due to poor maintenance procedures and not a reflection on the design of the plane.

[@propman3523]

You answered many of the questions I've had for years. Good job!

[@eddiehimself]

"We have a 727 at home!"

[@denisvasilenkov2285]

The total number of Tu-154s produced is 923 units, not 1025 units, as stated in this video. Many people get this wrong because of the serial number gap between the last production Tu-154B-2 (MSN 84A605) and the first production Tu-154M (MSN 84A701).

[@eugenesuhanov104]

This aircraft is anything but forgotten.

[@SiVlog1989]

I first heard about the TU-154 in the awful mid air collision between a chartered TU-154 carrying mostly school children and a DHL 777 over Überlingen, Germany, in 2002. It was also the type of aircraft involved in the Soviet Union's and Uzbekistan's deadliest air crash, the Uchqaduk disaster, where all 200 people onboard were killed when the crew couldn't get their rest before their flight, Aeroflot Flight 5143, making mistakes due to their chronic tiredness that led to the aircraft entering a flat spin and descending to earth like (in the words of Paper Skys) an autumn leaf for 2 minutes before crashing into the desert 68km North East of Uchqaduk.

[@eugenweinbender9476]

Forgotten?! There were thousands of them flying back and forth in the former soviet states and some of them still do. If anything, this plane was pretty popular at his time among many socialist operators and has a Legacy of its own..

[@stevenr2463]

Looks to me as if most of it was stolen from the H/S (DH) Trident.

[@STEN3326]

Occidental people, will you fly aboard the TU 154 ? Me: Yes just after an intense prayer to God.

[@Kirillissimus]

It might be a little bit less safe than some other popular contemporary designs especially if you count true legends of western aircraft design but it surely was at least better than the latest modern stuff from Boeing. I mean it never had any of the strange quirks like passenger doors sometimes just opening and falling off mid flight.

[@STEN3326]

@@Kirillissimus It's strange that you should be so hard on Boeing. You know very well that the problem lies with the latest executives, who are carnivorous financiers. We need to clean house from the top down. Remember the technicians and engineers who demonstrated in the streets with the slogans: “We make airplanes, not burgers”. I'm French, and I love Boeing as much as Airbus. I wish Boeing would get its act straight, because it has made some very good planes.

[@draoi99]

I just want to know if the maintenance was done right and the pilots are fully rested.

[@STEN3326]

@@draoi99 Also and equally that they know their plane perfectly like the back of their hand😅

[@varsobalan9864]

Tonnes or tons ? There is a little difference ...

[@alielabdimarras7965]

The civilized world uses SI-units 1 ton = 1000kg

[@grafhilgenhurst9717]

But was the plane dangerous? Do we know takeoff and landing speeds, runway requirements? I rode in one in the 1980s, and thought it was fast but comparatively crude compared with western airliners (cramped interior, ice cold fuselage, small doors. Not to mention Aeroflot standards for customer service.

[@datathunderstorm]

The Tu-154 wasn't dangerous by any stretch of the imagination. I flew on these twice a year from 1981 to 1986 as a foreign student studying in the then Soviet Union. I never experienced any emergency or any anomalous flight characteristics as a passenger on this splendid airliner - something I couldn't say about the Ilyushin Il-62 I flew on in 1982 from London Heathrow to Moscow with a scheduled stopover in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). The Il-62 arrived late at Heathrow, possibly indicating that it was already suffering problems during the inbound journey from the USSR. On the return flight to Moscow via Leningrad, the crew shutdown an engine within an hour of our takeoff from Heathrow. They then announced the aircraft would no longer be flying to Leningrad but making a bee line straight for Moscow's Sheremetyova 2 airport. We made it into Russian airspace on 3 engines and I strongly suspect just before we started our descent towards Moscow, another engine might have been shutdown due to overheating (the main bearings on those engines were notorious for failing, resulting in a catastrophic failure of the engine and the one beside it too). We glided in on the final approach with only two engines howling like banshees. What I remember clearly is the minute the Il-62 touched down at Sheremetyova 2, the flight crew shutdown the engines immediately. I mean turned them right off. Cut power to them the second the wheels touched the tarmac. We were treated to the sounds of the remaining engines spooling down as they were taken offline - it was spooky! There was no reverse thrust. They even lost hydraulics no doubt. Oh, and the cabin lights went out. We lost all power. We sat in total darkness as we rumbled down the runway at speed initially. The aircraft trundled to the end of the long runway, till it ran out of momentum and finally rolled to a halt. The cabin was pitch black. Surprisingly, there was no panic on board. Everyone sat quietly, barely murmuring to each other. Just total silence. Even the flight attendants weren't saying a word. We sat there in total darkness for at least 10 to 15 minutes before a tow truck turned up and slowly towed the aircraft to the terminal. Once there, an external APU was connected to the aircraft and the cabin lights and air conditioning came back online. We were then allowed to leave the aircraft. No apology or explanation was given. It was my first and only flight on an Ilyushin Il-62. In comparison, the Tu-154 was a reliable and powerful aircraft on all the flights I went on as a passenger. A testament to how well it was put together, was being on an Aeroflot flight leg from Lagos to Tripoli which was running over an hour late. Somehow, the Tu-154-B aircraft shaved a whole hour off the flight and arrived in Tripoli as scheduled, much to the shock and surprise of the passengers on board who were woken from their slumber and advised the aircraft was about to descend towards Tripoli a full hour before we should have received that announcement. This Tu-154-B then duly nosed down, with engine speed greatly reduced and proceeded to do the fastest "ballistic" descent into Tripoli that I had ever experienced. I would have loved to know what maximum Mach speed we attained during the descent, as the noise of the air screaming past the fuselage was the loudest I had ever experienced. The flight crew then proceeded to slow the Tu-154-B down by employing shallow "S - Bends" (over the Sahara desert) almost the same way the Space Shuttle Orbital Vehicle would do when trying to bleed off speed when returning to earth. We were treated to clear views of the golden Sahara desert in the early morning sun as the Tu-154-B did a series of port and starboard steep banks to bleed off speed. Steep enough that we could see the desert sands beneath us on one side of the aircraft and the blue sky on the opposite side. Eventually we approached Tripoli airport coming in at 90 degrees to the final approach flight line (and runway) - I could actually see Tripoli Airport's terminal out of my left hand side window. We intersected the final approach flight line rather very low and close to the airport, turning a full 90 degrees to line up with the runway while still descending and the pilots made a perfect touchdown under 30 seconds later. While many passengers were shocked at the unexpected mild acrobatics of the Tu-154-B, I was totally elated and deeply impressed at the best descent into an airport that I had ever experienced. The Tu-154-B was certainly one of the toughest and most solid aircraft to come out of the former Soviet Union and I remain an eternal fan of the aircraft. I believe the flight I described happened late August 1985; Lagos - Tripoli (- Vienna - Moscow). And no, I'm not making any of this up!

[@johnh4434]

@@datathunderstorm looklike to me a copy of Boeing 727 but bigger and Boeing 727 a copy of Caravelle ( first in the world with rear mount engine ) with 1 more engine

[@dannyboy-vtc5741]

@john4434 ah caravelle the sexiest passenger airplane ever made, sleek fuesolage, sexy looking engine nacelles, triangle shaped windows, even the air france livery on it was sexy. It was like 911 targa, or db6 of airliners.

[@StopTeoriomSpiskowym]

Heavy and low powerful plane

[@Taketimeout3]

Conceptually copied? They just copied the looks and made a design that is prone to stall and needing 4 flight crew. Anhedral on a low wing design? Fuel efficiency somewhat lower? Only slightly less safe than other trijets of similar design? Another example of being economical with the truth from a russian blogger. 😅 However there is no denying it is one of the most beautiful looking planes ever made and

[@super_slav91]

I mean, the 727 was a literal copy of the Trident the British made the same misstate like they did with the Nene by letting Boeing engineers look at the trident design and then the Yanks later said nah we good, then all of a sudden they pull out a suspiciously similar plane just before Hawker does. The 154 does look the best along with the Trident with its offset front gear and yes the extra tiny booster jet on the super trident making it a quad or 5 if you include the APU.