Flight of the Concordski
This stamp, the highest denomination in a 1969 series featuring Soviet aviation, celebrates a less well-known technology race between the two superpowers, to create a supersonic airliner. The plane on it looks a bit like the Anglo-French Concorde – but it isn’t. It is a Tupolev TU-144.
The idea for a supersonic passenger jet was first mooted at was taking shape in the UK. In that year, news about this reached France, where engineers had been working on a similar project. The two teams linked up. The news also reached Moscow, where Premier Nikita Khrushchev decided that Russia should have one, too – and first.
