Tupolev Tu-104 variant
Tupolev Tu-104 Tu-104A
The improved June 1957 version with AM-3M engines and 70 seats: what the English source calls the definitive production variant, the only one exported and the one that set load and speed records.
- 80
- Units built
- 2,790 km
- Range
- 70
- Passengers
History
More thrust, more seats
The Tu-104A appeared in June 1957. Continued improvement of the Mikulin engines — now AM-3M, rated at 8,700 kgf each against the original AM-3's 6,735 — allowed significant growth in capacity, up to 70 seats. The English Wikipedia describes it as the definitive production variant of the type. Eighty airframes were built, six of them exported to Czechoslovakia.
The 1957 records
The variant left two documented marks in September 1957: on 6 September it flew with a 20 t payload at 11,211 m above mean sea level, and on 24 September it reached an average speed of 970.8 km/h with a 2-tonne payload.
The first all-jet route
In 1957 ČSA Czechoslovak Airlines became the only export customer for the Tu-104 and, flying the Tu-104A between Prague and Moscow, the first airline in the world to operate a route exclusively with jet airliners. ČSA bought six Tu-104As — four new and two used — configured for 81 passengers; three were later written off, one after a refuelling incident in India and another to pilot error without fatalities.
Descendants of the -104A
The Tu-104A airframe gave rise to the Tu-104AK zero-gravity trainer for cosmonauts, the five Tu-104A-TS troop transport and casualty evacuation conversions, and the Tu-104D-85 interior rebuilds for 85 passengers.