tzlk to me about aeroflot

[SEMI_287]

I have read about that a little bit. The way that plane failed is scarey. I think is a handsome and menacing looking jet.

If NASA restored the plane and flew it, I might want a ride.

 

[fdcg27]

That aircraft was last flown in the late nineties.
NASA contracted for the use of the aircraft. They had nothing to do with making it airworthy.
For any design, you can't get better work than what the original designers are capable of doing, since nobody knows an aircraft better.
Under the Russian system, a design bureau like Tupolev did the design work while the actual manufacturing was carried out by an entity that specialized in that sort of work.
So, Boeing builds airplanes of its own design (or McD's, in the case of the 717). In the USSR, Boeing would have done the design work while actual manufacture would be contracted to an aircraft manufacturing firm.
IOW, while Tupolev designed the aircraft, they didn't actually build it.

 

[Jetronic]

they build the prototypes, no? contracting the building only happens after acceptance of the prototype performance?

 

[fdcg27]

IDK
OTOH, it would make sense to build the prototypes and get in some flight testing to discover any needed revisions and define the final design.
OTOH, modern aircraft prototypes are typically built on production tooling. You can't exactly build something like a TU-144 using hand tools, unlike many small, simple aircraft.
I'll have to research this, but my bet would be that even the first test article was built by the contractor to the design supplied by Tupolev.
Modern transports don't really begin with prototypes, either. The first test articles produced are intended to be the final design and not much tweaking is typically needed as the envelope is opened up and the certification process progresses. Much has been learned in the more than sixty years since the first jet transport entered commercial service.
Why Tupolev's engineers decided to build the TU-144 in very large sections with nothing to stop the propagation of fatigue cracks is a mystery, but rest assured that Tupolev's engineers had done successful jet airliners before and have done so since. These weren't stupid nor incompetent people. A bit of a mystery.