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Civil Aircraft. Wings over Continents. The end of December 1968 was stormy. There was low cloud cover over the test airfield in Zhukovsky. And the ministry kept calling: "Ensure the first flight of the aircraft before the New Year!" It was no accident that they were rushing. The supersonic passenger airliner Tu-144 was about to debut... At the same time, the Anglo-French Concorde was preparing for its first flight. It was important to get ahead of the competition - the prestige of the Soviet country was at stake. On December 31, the last day of the year, the Tu-144 took off... This aircraft went down in history as the world's first supersonic passenger airliner. Civil aviation was about to reach a qualitatively new level...