In 1956 the Design Bureau was given a task to build combat unmanned aircraft operating within wide range of supersonic speeds Andrey N. Tupolev understood quite well that the new trend should be developed by young people and put this task before Alexey A.Tupolev. To fulfill the task a wide scope of new industries and scientific and research institutes should be involved. Technical requirements to arrangement of said air vehicles differed substantially from the tasks that the Design Bureau used to solve previously (long hating, automatic control, wide range of speeds, new type of accelerator assisted start etc). This made A.A.Tupolev to think that the air vehicles should be developed by young but experienced and talented people. In this way the “K” Department was formed in the Design Bureau specialized on unmanned aircraft that under management of A.A.Tuplev founded new fresh approaches on a number of types of unmanned aircraft. Alexey Tupolev ability to contact with people made it possible to him to attract to this business a wide scope of scientific and research institutes and Design Bureaus from other industries. In parallel with progress of said works the role of Alexey Tupolev as a leader constantly increased. The sequence of fulfillment of any task typical for Tupolev Design Bureau and successfully applied by A.A.Tupolev defined a successful completion of these works followed by serial production and operation and building of a fully recovered reconnaissance aircraft TU-139 as a further development of TU-123 a/c.

A unique arrangement of small size reconnaissance unmanned aircraft TU-143 (“Reis”) found under management of A.A.Tupolev, with small mid-section, wide range of c.g. position and simplicity of operation allowed to realize the whole number of aircraft of this type (“Strizh”, “Reis-D”, TU-300) solving a wide scope of missions and having a wide range of flight data.

During last years of life of Andrey Tupolev the share of creative approaches suggested by his colleagues - S.M.Yeger, D.S.Markov and A.A.Tupolev - was increased. In early 1960s A.A.Tupolev was given an important task - to design the first in the world supersonic passenger aircraft TU-144. Step by step entire Design Bureau was involved in activity on said aircraft and A.A.Tupolev as a Chief Designer became a recognized manager of project of Supersonic Passenger Aircraft TU-144. During this period a huge amount of new technical problems related with specific conditions of long endurance supersonic flight was solved together with TsAGI.

One generation of specialists was gradually replaced by another. And finally this natural process caused in 1973 appointment of Alexey A.Tupolev a General Designer soon after the death of Andrey N.Tupolev.

Simultaneously with development of serial version of TU-144 a/c Alexey Tuplev was actively busy with improvement of TU-22M2 and TU-22M3 performance, with TU-95MS a/c and with putting into operation of TU-154B a/c during a rather difficult period of mastering this aircraft by Aeroflot.

At this time Alexey Tupolev - already being a General Designer - he had to uphold new technical approaches and to show necessity of operation of TU-144 a/c.

Putting Supersonic Passenger Aircraft TU-144 a/c into operation would require from Civil Aviation the second technical revolution: improvement of existing runways, Air Traffic Control system, air traffic control facility, maintenance system and all systems of passengers transportation and service. However B.P.Bougaev - the active supporter of the first technical revolution associated with introduction of jet aircraft when became a Minister of Civil Aviataion , took occasion of the crush that took place near Moscow and did his best to prevent putting in to operation the native Supersonic Passenger Aircraft. As a result regular operation of TU-144 was terminated and the entire Supersonic Passenger Aircraft Program was considered not enough reliable.

Even when Andrey Tupolev was alive Alexey Tupolev participated in competition between different Design Bureaus for development of advanced strike strategic aircraft. In view of available powerful experimental and creative potentiality and due to obvious success of the Design Bureau headed by Alexey Tupolev in activities on TU-22M and TU-144 programs Tupolev Design Bureau was chosen to work on new strategic missile-carrier. A huge amount of companies and organizations of Aircraft Industry and related industries were busy with realization of TU-160 aircraft under technical management of Alexey Tupolev. He managed to organize the whole collective of the Design Bureau for development of this unique by technical approaches aircraft. The Design Bureau and personally Alexey Tupolev efforts were crowned by triumph. Our country obtained an excellent strategic aircraft complex.

Practically permanent research works were done in the area of subsonic civil aircraft aiming at the most efficient and operable layouts foe aircraft provided with high by-pass ration jet engines. In this case the recent achievements of aerodynamics, principally new flight and navigation complexes and control systems were utilized. The gained experience and developed design approaches were used for improvement of economic efficiency of TU-154a/c: its modification TU-154M was built. Joint efforts of TsAGI and Design Bureau resulted it possibility for A.A.Tuplev to realize the developed concepts in the project of TU-204 aircraft which should meet operational requirements of the XI-st century.

Selection of parameters for TU-204 a/c which allowed to create a family of its modifications that should become the most mass, profitable and ecologically clean civil aircraft in our country - was a great service of A.A.Tuplev and the collective headed by him.

In the same time A.A.Tupolev was busy with a wide teaching activity and scientific work at Moscow Aviation and technological Institute, he was a professor, head of chair. He participated directly in teaching of hundreds of high-class aircraft specialists who will develop Russian Aviation in new century.

He was elected as an actual member (academician) of Academy of Science of the USSR and contributed significantly in activity of Institute of Automatics of the USSR. He was awarded title of Hero of Socialist Labor, he was a prize-winner of Lenin and State premium, was awarded with many highest medals of the USSR.

A.A.Tupolev died on the 12-th of May, 2000 after serious illness.