Concorde / Tupolev TU-144

Concorde prototype 001, registered as F-WTSS. Its first flight from Toulouse had been delayed for several days due to bad weather. At 15:40 hrs, Concorde 001 started its first take off run, with afterburners lit, the four Olympus 593 engines briskly accelerated the aircraft, after 4,700 feet of runway and at a speed of 205 knots 001 rotated

In the sixties the engineers of the British/French "Concorde" and the Russian Tupolev TU-144 were competing for first place in getting a supersonic commercial plane airborne. On December 31, 1968 the first prototype of the Tupolev TU-144 took flight