The Soviet Propeller Plane That Flew Like a Jet

Video from the channel Mustard about Tupolev Tu-114, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 10:05. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary telling how the USSR turned the Tu-95 bomber into the Tu-114 airliner, and its most famous flight: the one that carried Nikita Khrushchev to the United States in September 1959.

At the 1955 Geneva summit, Khrushchev arrived in an aircraft much smaller than Eisenhower's Super Constellation. The USSR only built short-range aircraft such as the Il-14. Weeks later, the Tupolev bureau was tasked with adapting the Tu-95, and two parallel projects were launched. The first, the Tu-116, was a VIP transport with minor modifications. The second was a full commercial airliner: it kept the engines and the swept wing, but mounted the wing lower under a wider, pressurized fuselage. The first prototype was ready in just over two years. Khrushchev insisted on flying in the Tu-114 even though it was still in testing and had cracks near the engines. On 15 September 1959, the aircraft took off from Moscow for Andrews, near Washington, on a journey of almost 8,000 km, with Soviet Navy ships on alert along the route.

The video presents it as the fastest propeller aircraft in history, at 870 km/h, thanks to its turboprops with contra-rotating propellers, whose tips reached supersonic speed. It also cites a 35-degree wing sweep and capacity for up to 224 passengers. It entered service with Aeroflot in 1961, with three classes, cabins and a galley on the lower deck. It was very noisy, but also reliable: the video mentions more than six million passengers without accidents due to its design. It was withdrawn from civil service in 1977.