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The Concorde didn't fly supersonically above land, it only could above the ocean. The Tu-144 however flew between Moscow and Almaty, so entirely above land; why did it fly like this? Didn't it have a that loud sonic boom? If no, why not? If it had, why did it fly above land anyway while the Concorde refused to go supersonic above land?

Giovanni
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    In the soviet union nobody was going to complain... – GdD Dec 16 '20 at 13:06
  • @GdD Why would anyone complain about a not frequent sound that is very high in the atmosphere (the Concorde flew up to 60,000 ft and the Tu-144 to 66,000 ft) anyway unless the planes fly at night? Folks beneath the Tu's flight path obviously managed the flights above them well, didn't they? – Giovanni Dec 16 '20 at 13:46
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    I don't understand the downvotes. What's wrong with my question? It asks on whether there may have been a technical advantage over the Concorde that allowed it to fly above land. Tu-144s seemed to be more progressed anyway. – Giovanni Dec 16 '20 at 14:25
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    I don't know for sure @Giovanni, I didn't downvote but I didn't upvote either. My constructive feedback is that your question needs a bit more research. Did the Tu-144 fly supersonic on it's regular route? Did the route take it over major population centers or were they avoided? You need to account for the nature of the soviet union as well, people were hardly in a position to complain. – GdD Dec 16 '20 at 14:29
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    @Giovanni Your question assumes a technical difference, but it was actually a political/legal difference. – StephenS Dec 16 '20 at 17:23
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    @Giovanni: I suspect the downvotes, like mine, are because the answer is so blindingly obvious, and belongs on the Politics site (or perhaps History). To repeat what others have said, this was the Soviet Union. – jamesqf Dec 16 '20 at 18:22
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    The Concorde did fly over land on occasion. It was very rare. The route was carefully planned. And, it only flew over sparsely populated terrain. – Dean F. Dec 16 '20 at 20:36
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Federico Dec 17 '20 at 10:32
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    other important point: Concorde was operated during several decades, while the Tu-144 did not really get its way to any real commercial service. – Joël Dec 17 '20 at 17:15
  • Folks, note that any comments are subject to DELETION. A block of comments has already been moved to chat (to preserve them and continue conversation) and that can't be done twice. Mods' only cleanup option now is deletion. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Dec 17 '20 at 18:43
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    Nowhere does your question state that you are asking about technical reasons as your comment claims. Therefore, most readers will assume you are looking for any reason, and the most obvious reason is "because USSR", which is blindingly obvious - hence the downvotes. If you wanted your question to be about technical reasons, you should have included that caveat in the title and body of the question. Don't complain when you weren't specific enough to prevent others from making assumptions. – Ian Kemp Dec 18 '20 at 11:42
  • Answers to this question and comments are so rusophobic and racist, that I'm simply flabbergasted and left without words. The level of anti-Russian propaganda evidently never subsided in the West that you all think that people in Russia were deprived of basic rights even the right to live in quiet places. Nevermind, that during Soviet times airports were much further from the cities exactly for this reason. Oh, the hatred towards Russia in the West... I have no words to describe it. – Eugene Morozov Dec 19 '20 at 17:38
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    @Eugene Morozov: Racist? Hardly: even the most diehard KKKers consider Russians to be anything but white. Anti-Russian? No. Anti-Soviet, certainly. It's the same as the difference between being anti-Nazi and anti-German. And people in the USSR certainly were deprived of most basic rights: learn a bit of history. – jamesqf Dec 24 '20 at 18:39
  • @jamesqf I was born in USSR and lived in USSR until 1991 when it was destroyed. People in USSR had more rights than in most other countries. It's an arrogant and wrong misconception that Soviet industry would make a noisy plane and make it fly over people heads just because people comfort doesn't matter. It's so wrong, to the point of being stupid. – Eugene Morozov Dec 25 '20 at 04:33
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    @Eugene Morozov: You must have a very strange definition of rights. – jamesqf Dec 25 '20 at 20:04
  • @jamesqf What can you know about rights of soviet citizens if all you know about it is antisoviet and antrussian propaganda? Just reading the answers here makes me want to do a facepalm - it's not like in USSR the government was obsessed with making life of people worse. On the contrary, it was the first (and the last) state on Earth dedicated to making life of all its citizens better. Not some groups of citizens - all of them. So there were strict norms what is allowed and what not, regarding pollution, public health, labor legislation, etc. – Eugene Morozov Dec 25 '20 at 23:47
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    @Eugene Morozov: This is not the place for a political discussion. I would just suggest that you are probably just as delusional, in your own way, as the typical American Trump supporter. – jamesqf Dec 27 '20 at 02:58
  • @IanKemp Read the third and fourth sentence in my question summary again! – Giovanni Mar 14 '21 at 05:59

5 Answers5

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The actual 'legal' reasons have already been mentioned. However, there was a bit more to it.

  • Tu-144 was meant to fly over land from the beginning; there was no way around it, unlike Concorde. So it was designed to fly higher. In particular, Tu-144 had about 20% lower wing loading and 20% higher thrust-to-weight ratio (at MTOW) than Concorde. (The reality was a bit more complicated; for example, Concorde was limited to FL600 again for 'legal' reasons, due to certification of the pressurisation system AFAIK).
  • Soviet citizens, apart from not being asked their opinion, were quite used to sonic booms from military aircraft. In many places of the country, they wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. In the Urals where I grew up, I heard them almost daily.
Zeus
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    Concorde was also meant to fly over land. Many of the intended routes were between Europe and Asia and cross-continent in the USA. – jwenting Dec 17 '20 at 14:34
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    Your answer, with the personal experience, is the most useful IMHO. – J.Hirsch Dec 17 '20 at 22:40
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    Regarding the last point: This is certainly true for other Eastern bloc countries too. In the GDR I heard supersonic booms every Wednesday, when an Soviet airfield nearby had their flight training day. – lejonet Dec 18 '20 at 14:03
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    When I grew up in the 1980s sonic booms were quite usual in the northern FRG, too. I am too young to actually remember, but in my memory it was a daily thing. The disregard for civilians on the ground was not a Eastern Bloc thing, it was a cold war thing, or an 80s thing... – I'm with Monica Dec 18 '20 at 22:27
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    @I'mwithMonica, As an American who visited FRG in the late 80's, I was shocked by the number of sonic booms I heard every day. I never heard one at home, despite living within 50 miles of 2 major USAF bases. It was a Cold War thing, but the burden wasn't shared equally by all participants in the Cold War. – The Photon Dec 19 '20 at 17:22
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The Tupolev Tu-144 was just as loud as the Concorde. As it was already pointed out, the Concorde was legally prevented from going supersonic over land by the US, UK, but it was more than capable of going supersonic over land. There were no similar restrictions over the Soviet Union for the Tu-144. Both planes had a sonic boom.

The plane's chief designer, Alexei Tupolev, whose father Andrei designed the first Soviet jet, was aboard and acknowledged the noise problem, saying it was inevitable with supersonic flight.

"The sonic boom is no different that a thunderclap - so it is no different than nature itself," he said.

From what I can determine, the noise from the Kuznetsov NK-144A turbofan engines that powered the Tupolev Tu-144 were not quiet and comparable to the noise of the Concorde with Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593 engines at takeoff produced 119.5 decibels. There is no side-by-side comparisons of the noise.

The Tu-144 was much louder inside during flight because of the amount of air it needed to move to keep the skin cool. The Concorde used more advanced cooling methods to keep the interior noise down.

One additional point is that each of the four NK-144A engines produced 6,000 lbs of thrust more than the Olympus 593. Even though the Tu-144 weighed 22 tons more than Concorde, it never really flew at full capacity, so it had a substantial kick during takeoff.

Now if I could just go on a flight with either plane.

gwally
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    The Tu-144 was originally louder also because the "first gen" engines were not powerfull enough for supercruise, so afterburner was needed to maintain supersonic speeds. Later engine upgrades made it possible to switch afterburner off during cruise, but this didn't affect the sonic boom, of course. It sayed the same. – Jpe61 Dec 17 '20 at 08:14
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    The sonic boom is generated by the front of the plane pushing air faster than it can move away. It will generate one even if the engines made no noise. – Nelson Dec 17 '20 at 13:42
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    plus a million for that last sentence m'man - shed a tear for the lost days of speed – Fattie Dec 17 '20 at 14:08
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    @Fattie: What speed? The Concorde & Tu-144 don't go any faster, perceptually, than a subsonic commercial airliner. If you want fast in an airplane, take your Piper Cub out and fly with the wheels in the sagebrush. – jamesqf Dec 17 '20 at 16:42
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    @jamesqf: I perceive 3 hours London to New York as fast (Concorde). I perceive the same journey by 787 in 6 hours as not so fast. I consider a Piper Cub slow in any configuration - unless it was tied to the back of a Concorde! – user33214 Dec 18 '20 at 14:23
  • @user33214: Look out the window, and tell me the Concorde is going fast, and the Cub not :-) Besides, the time spent in the plane is only a fraction of the trans-Atlantic trip. You spend way more time on the ground than you do flying. – jamesqf Dec 18 '20 at 17:56
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    @jamesqf: When I'm heading west and the sun is rising in front of me, then that's a very good perception of flying faster. – Mark Ireland Dec 19 '20 at 18:43
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The Concorde didn’t “refuse” to go supersonic over land; it was legally prohibited from doing so by every country it flew to/over.

The Tu-144 produced the same sonic boom, but aside from a few exhibitions, it flew only to/over countries that had no such law.

StephenS
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Another reason is that much of the flight was over the huge land mass of Kazakhstan with very low population density. So few people live in the steppes there that Roscosmos lets the first stage of rockets taking off of Baikonur simply fall to the ground. You wouldn't want to do that over France or England.1

Population density is higher in Russia close to Moscow, but still lower than in Western Europe, so with a suitable flight corridor most of the flight would be over sparsely populated areas.

1 Bear with me when I divert a little. For details about the first stages falling from the sky in Kazakhstan I recommend the stunning documentary Space Tourists by Christian Frei. One of its threads follows Kazakh metal scrap collectors who hunt them down. You will be surprised what they do with the round bottom part of the fuel tanks on the first evening after finding a stage.

Peter - Reinstate Monica
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    "You will be surprised what they do with the round bottom part of the fuel tanks on the first evening after finding a stage." This is not a news site trying to get clicks. – Sam Dec 18 '20 at 13:31
  • @Sam I am not involved in any way with that movie, if that's what you are implying. Or did you mean I sound like click bait? I just didn't want to give it away. The movie is worth buying or watching if it's still available at all. And while the movie and this detail are off topic on this site, they aren't by much (hey, the first stage is flying, in the atmosphere!). But that's why I put it in a footnote and said "bear with me". – Peter - Reinstate Monica Dec 18 '20 at 15:36
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    @Sam By the way, do you think this answer has any merit concerning the subject matter? I think it is one main reason -- if Kazakhstan were as densely populated as England or France then even in a Soviet totalitarian regime the plane would not have flown that route (but instead to Irkutsk or some other Siberian place). – Peter - Reinstate Monica Dec 18 '20 at 15:51
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    @Peter-ReinstateMonica, it's an important distinction that the USSR had lots of sparsely populated land to fly over without bothering too many people. – The Photon Dec 19 '20 at 17:26
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In addition it's also worth noting that the TU-144 only made 102 commercial flights. It wouldn't really have got to the point where anyone would complain.

Richard Dzien
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