Tupolev Tu-114

A Council of Ministers directive and a Ministry of Aircraft Production order issued in August 1955 tasked the Tupolev bureau with creating an airliner with a range of 8,000 km, based on the Tu-95 strategic bomber and powered by four Kuznetsov NK-12 engines driving contra-rotating propellers. The Tu-114 kept the bomber's wing, empennage, landing gear and powerplants, mated to an entirely new pressurised fuselage of much larger diameter. The extra weight required greater landing flap area and an increased flap chord compared with the bomber's. The wing was mounted low on the fuselage, leaving the Tu-114 standing much higher on its gear than the Tu-95 and requiring a new nose leg, though the main gear was unchanged. The first flight took place on 15 November 1957.

The first Tu-114, registration CCCP-L5611, was shown to the West in 1958 at the Brussels World Exhibition. The following year it carried Nikita Khrushchev on his first trip to the United States, in September 1959, the first such visit by a Soviet leader. The aircraft was still in testing and had completed its first long-range flight only four months earlier; post-flight analysis had found hairline cracks in the engines. The Central Committee, Defence Minister Malinovsky and Khrushchev's own personal pilot all thought the flight too risky, but the premier insisted, and Andrei Tupolev showed his confidence by putting his son Alexei aboard the same aircraft. A team of engineers rode along, operating diagnostic equipment to monitor the engines. On arrival at Andrews Air Force Base the ground crew found they had no steps tall enough, and the delegation had to use the aircraft's own emergency escape ladder. The same happened at London and Paris.

Regular Aeroflot service began on 24 April 1961 between Moscow's Vnukovo Airport and Khabarovsk, later extending to Copenhagen, Havana, Montreal, New Delhi, Paris, Belgrade and Tokyo. Havana flights via Conakry started on 10 July 1962, but American pressure closed one stopover after another: Guinea after four flights, then Dakar after three, then Algiers after three more. The answer was the very-long-range Tu-114D variant, with seating cut from 170 to 60 and fifteen extra fuel tanks, refuelling at Olenya near Murmansk and routing over the Barents Sea. For the Moscow–Tokyo service, Japan Air Lines agreed with Aeroflot to use the Tu-114 with a mixed crew and a two-class, 105-seat layout; the first flight was on 17 April 1967.

In a series of flights beginning on 24 March 1960 the Tu-114 set closed-circuit speed records with payload, including 871.38 km/h over 1,000 km with pilot Ivan Sukhomlin. As the Il-62 took over, the Tu-114s were moved to long domestic routes out of Domodedovo. The airframe fatigue life was set at 14,000 flying hours and most aircraft reached it in 1976; by the summer of 1977 Aeroflot decided to scrap twenty-one at once. A few carried on with the Soviet Air Forces until 1991.