I believe this is quite a recent video (last 10years or so) when the aircraft was on a one off ferry flight (as can be vouched by the Boeing / NASA partnership – I just wonder when the last time any of the crew had (if ever) flown that perticular aircraft type before?!?

Why do you say ‘ferry flight’ ???

The a/c is the Tu-144LL (LL = Flying Laboratory).

It was taken out of mothballs and refurbished – with money provided by NASA, Rockwell & Boeing etc.

http://www1.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/photo/TU-144LL/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/pastprojects/TU-144/index.html

It was fitted with Kuznetsov NK-321 engines from a Tu-160.

All the flying was done in Russia from Zhukovsky – so where was the ‘ferry flight’ ??

Ken