This Day in Aviation History

October 4th, 1968
First flight of the Tupolev Tu-154.

The Tupolev Tu-154 (Russian: Ту-154; NATO reporting name: Careless) is a three-engine medium-range narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, it carried half of all passengers flown by Aeroflot and its subsidiaries (137.5 million/year or 243.8 billion passenger km in 1990), remaining the standard domestic-route airliner of Russia and former Soviet states until the mid-2000s. It was exported to 17 non-Russian airlines and used as head-of-state transport by the air forces of several countries.

With a cruising speed of 975 kilometres per hour (606 mph), the Tu-154 is one of the fastest civilian aircraft in use and has a range of 5,280 kilometres (3,280 mi). Capable of operating from unpaved and gravel airfields with only basic facilities, it was widely used in the extreme Arctic conditions of Russia’s northern/eastern regions where other airliners were unable to operate. Originally designed for a….

Source:
Wikipedia, Tupolev Tu-154: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154

YouTube, Tupolev Tu-154: 
Tupolev Tu-154

Don’t forget to +1, Comment, and Share!
For more content like this. Please follow me at Gazing Skyward TV 
#avgeek   #aviation   #history