Russian Super Plane - The Blended Wing Never Built Tupolev Tu-404

One of the most insane large aircraft designs didn't come from the west but from the heart of Russia. It could carry 1200 passengers over two decks actually inside of the wing itself and would need six power engines to even get it in the air. But it never made it past the concept stage and would forever be a major could-have-been in the world of aviation.

This is the never build Tupolev Yu-404

Back in the 90s, airports were full. for major hubs, there were no more landing slots available and airlines simply couldn't run more services. Hence, the solution was bigger planes.

While we already know all about the Airbus A380, and i've covered the Boeing 747X on this channel, the Russian aerospace company Tupolev had very much the same idea and was working on their own program. But we are getting ahead of ourselves

Our story begins at the end of another - the break up of the Soviet Union. With the USSR no longer together, those at Tupolev saw that there was still demand for jets in this new capitalist economy and that they would need to be more innovative to compete against the west who could now enter the market - the defacto government monopoly was no longer guaranteed.

Thus they came up with two aircraft designs, the Tu-304 and the Tu-404.

The tu-304 would be a traditional aircraft with a squashed body. It would have 300-400 passengers depending on configuration and feature three rows in a 2-3-3-2 configuration. It would have a short-range however, of only 4,680 km (2,530 nmi) thanks to using four smaller engines like those on the Airbus A320. Effectively it would me a perfect medium-haul aircraft for short routes between large cities.

Development of this concept evolved into the Frigate Ecojet, and then the Frigate Freejet under a new design firm - and is still under development today pending new engine technology.

But this design had nothing on its bigger brother, the 404.

The Tu-404 would end up being far bigger than anyone first imagined. Originally the team went with a traditional wing design that a double-decker aircraft, 86 meters long with a wingspan of 77 meter - like the A380 but without the light saving materials, making it too heavy for any real economical savings.

If you are trying to transport as many passengers as possible, instead of making the cabin longer or taller, why not make it wider? And if the cabin is so wide, why not make the whole plane the wing?

This radical design would be a 'blended wing' model, with a wingspan of 110 meters, and would be 59.7 meters long. It would be designed for long range missions, capable of flying up to 13,500 km (8,400 mi, 7,300 nmi) at cruise speeds.

For power, the aircraft would either have six propfan engines. The former being offered as it would be cheaper and more available in the new Russia, at a cost of fuel efficiency.

The passenger cabin would make up around 1/3 of the interior space of the wing and would be split up into six double-decked sections for a total of 1214 seats in all economy. If it had a typical business class configuration seen on a plane today, then the total would only be around 750 passengers. The middle of the plane behind the passenger section would be a vast cargo compartment.

While there is little information about what the cabin would look like, we can't imagine it would be the most comfortable.

You see, because the plane is so wide, there would be very few windows per passenger, and it would be rare to get a window seat. There are six gigantic engines above you in the back of the cabin makes it seem like a hot, dark, loud nightmare.

In the mid 90s, Tuplov was shopping the design around to various buyers and airlines behind closed doors. By 1997, the model vanished and reemerged as a much smaller design with just four turbofans.

In the late 2000s, it was rumored that Russia was working on a next-generation stealth bomber with a blended wing design. Called the PAK VTA Il-106, it featured many of the same technologies as the 404, but was able to fly supersonic, transport, and deploy multiple military payloads.

At the end of the day, it's pretty obvious to see why this super blended wing design never went ahead. There simply was no market.

While there was a problem with airports, the solution proved to be something completely different entirely - instead of bigger planes, countries would build more airports.

This would lead aircraft design to favour smaller 200-300 seater aircraft that could fly efficiently to smaller airports, such as the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350.

Lastly, we also need to keep in mind how much of a challenge it is to get an aircraft approved for flight under the FAA and EASA.

Although on a closing note, I would have personally loved to see a blended wing design, like this or others, make it to the market. It would have led to a world of innovation and dramatically changed what we would consider as a flying machine.

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