Flight Life of the Arrow...

MacCaulay

Banned
I just ordered the (fairly fanciful) TV movie, and it got me wondering...suppose it had gotten into service, how long could it have stayed in before a replacement would've been needed?

Yeah...I know I'm ripping open the wound again. I of all people know that. I'm watching YouTube footage and I had to pull my head out of my hands to type this.

God damn but it's a beautiful plane...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lTGTPQlDE&feature=related


4229293483_652e2f46e4.jpg


Yes...that's a CF-18 next to a mock-up of an Arrow cockpit. I thought that was a kick-ass picture as well...
 
Outclassed by the teen-series by the mid 1970s IMO. Tomcats and Eagles can do the job better and are much more versatile: they can dogfight instead of pure point interception.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Outclassed by the teen-series by the mid 1970s IMO. Tomcats and Eagles can do the job better and are much more versatile: they can dogfight instead of pure point interception.

When did the CF buy the CF-18s? Part of me wonders if the Arrow wouldn't have just been pulled through with modernization programmes until half a dozen wings had fallen off.

Lord knows I'd take an Arrow over a Lawndart. :D
 
CF-18s were ordered in 1983. IMO we should've ordered Rhino-Echoes in the late 60s, which might have served for 20 years with regular upgrades as a multirole fighter. But not with PET in office... :mad::mad::mad: Perhaps some 'Varks as strike aircraft?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
You know what really sucks is that by now the model planes of the Arrow probably saw more combined hours of maintenance than the real things ever did.

However let's say Canada keeps the Arrow and home-grown flight capabilities are advanced just that much more. I could see the effects stretching to maybe giving Canada a small edge in developing UAVs that launch from larger planes. The Arrow, at the end of its useful life by 1985 is one of the first test-beds for a launcher for several smaller UAVs controlled by land units operating over a wide area that is too large for the Arrow to cover.

I'm sure there will be better planes by then, and Canada may have plans to get them or already have a few more advanced aircraft ready to retire out the Arrow. But that's as far as I could stretch it without breaking it right now, I was thinking about making them entirely unmanned but .... why?:confused:
 

MacCaulay

Banned
You know what really sucks is that by now the model planes of the Arrow probably saw more combined hours of maintenance than the real things ever did.

The sad thing is, you're probably right.

However let's say Canada keeps the Arrow and home-grown flight capabilities are advanced just that much more.

You bring up a good point. When the program got axed, the Canadian aerospace industry just hemorrhaged people like crazy.

There were supposedly wind-tunnel models lying at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes, and when NASA came calling and offered all these guys jobs they took them.

When you can design jet engines and control surfaces, then you're in high demand. And cancelling the Arrow didn't send a good message to those folks.
 
The mission of the Arrow was comparable to that of the F-106 which was Eagled out between 1981 and 1988.

My Arrow model continues to fly next to my Arrow photograph signed by Jan Zurakowski to this very day, but the nose probe required replacement with a tooth pick due to bad weather.

arrow3.jpg
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Another interesting side note to keeping the Arrow alive would be Canada's guided missile industry. The Velvet Glove was a semi-active radar guided missile developed completely in country, but there were issues with it's size and if it could be launched from the Arrow while it was going supersonic.

A Canadian aerospace company (possibly Canadair?) ended up taking over production and development of the Sparrow III for use on the Arrow, and was ready to begin looking into restarting the Velvet Glove programme but without an indigenous aircraft to put them on the whole thing foundered.

So...all things going incredibly A-OK, the RCAF could have a Canadian-built and designed interceptor powered by Canadian engines armed with Canadian-built weapons. Basically...everything on the Arrow could've been built north of the parallel.
If they decided to use the same radar from the Velvet Glove, then even the guidance system on the Canuck Sparrow 3 would be indigenous.
 
You need to have the political conditions for this to occur. That means no Diefenbaker, which saves us multiple migraines on the international scene. So St-Laurent wins a minority government in '57, and retires the following year in favour of Robert Winters, CD Howe's successor, who's the only prominent economic bleu until Mulroney. Being only 48, he can remain in power for a while. Liberals win a majority in '60 when Maurice kicks the can and thus Quebec returns to the Liberals.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
The sad thing is, you're probably right.

You bring up a good point. When the program got axed, the Canadian aerospace industry just hemorrhaged people like crazy.

There were supposedly wind-tunnel models lying at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes, and when NASA came calling and offered all these guys jobs they took them.

When you can design jet engines and control surfaces, then you're in high demand. And cancelling the Arrow didn't send a good message to those folks.

But...no ideas on the unmanned drones as a payload instead of a missile with a conventional warhead?

You need to have the political conditions for this to occur. That means no Diefenbaker, which saves us multiple migraines on the international scene. So St-Laurent wins a minority government in '57, and retires the following year in favour of Robert Winters, CD Howe's successor, who's the only prominent economic bleu until Mulroney. Being only 48, he can remain in power for a while. Liberals win a majority in '60 when Maurice kicks the can and thus Quebec returns to the Liberals.

I think you need to look at constituencies with Military bases and see if we can get the military bases moved to X-candidate instead of Y-parlimentarian who wouldn't vote pro-arrow in order for those that support the Arrow have a superb backing, get them into the cabinet, then they get PM...

Actually I don't know if that was your plan, but you're the political guy, I just think it would be easier for someone to get the Arrow to stick around if they were propelled to the heights of power because they supported it. I can't name any names, but that's your job. Bonus points if they have a son or daughter who become an Arrow pilot. ;)
 
How long the Arrow can stay in service would depend on whether it could change missions too, IMO. Yes, it would be outclassed for the most part by the late 1970s, but one could also see if its still flying it being upgraded too. I can see an upgraded Arrow with turbofan engines flying in the early 70s, and thus changing the plane from a dedicated interceptor into a multi-role aircraft, kinda like the F-4 Phantom went from a fighter to a fighter-bomber. In that role, it could stay with the CF alongside the F/A-18 (or perhaps the CF doesn't bother with the Hornet - they only need a fighter, not a fighter-bomber, and probably have more money, which might mean Canadian Tomcats or Eagles) well into the 1980s or even into the 1990s. The original CF-105s would be well past worn out by this point, but if they built them I imagine refurbishing them would not be particularly difficult.
 
mmmeee0: Hmm, not really. 1950s and earlier were the days when the Liberals were to the Tories' economic right (more specifically, populist v. establishmentarian) and were as invulnerable in the West as the Tories are now. Quite shocking, I know. ;) Winters is the best PM for the military out of any potential PM of either party from 1960 to 1980.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Also, what if, for security reasons Canada felt that even with the nuclear missiles we needed the Avro Arrow, and in order to get an edge over the USSR they needed to deke them out like hockey players. Things that kept the Soviets away were selling like maple syrup to European tourists in the era.

So, since Canada has two oceans the government publicly announces they're going to get another one in the 195...uh....four or five. It's all good until some minor quibble about how god damn expensive it is to go to Australia for Canadians. And it is really expensive to people who would want to go to Australia, or are coming back from going there or going around the world. It seems to be the topic of the month on parliament and when people notice it's taken as an indicator of Canada's ability on the world stage. Canada and Australia, so far apart could grow closer beyond the barrier in order to further advance their home-grown industries to be able to reach around the globe to other trade partners.

It's like... this huge obstacle to reaching a truly global market can only be accomplished by reaching for the sky while on a boat in the middle of the largest ocean between two friends on opposite hemispheres of the world.

You know (theoretically of course) how big the Pacific ocean is.

So, in order to subsidize travel around the world the Canadian Forces are not joined by one aircraft carrier paid for by the Tax Payers but four of them. The first two are military vehicles and the next pair are commercially owned.

Yes... commercial air craft carriers can be a giant source of tax revenue. If you have a Pacific coast. So much routes just waiting to be opened, Air Canada is having wet dreams. Revenue Canada loves the estimates on long-term revenue from having a jump on international travel income, eventually it will be enough to pay off the carriers and planes the GoC chips in to buy.

But, this is just the public set-up. The CSIS knows that the USSR is probably using newspapers to keep a close eye on anything it develops publicly. This can't be hidden, getting so much air craft carriers and developing international travel.

So, while the carriers are being made (or bought from the Americans if the commercial people don't want to wait for so long:rolleyes:) CSIS places a few key people into certain companies to make some dominoes come crashing down. If the company building some engines in Canada for this project was revealed to have a corrupt CEO who was blackmailed into going along with "losing" the contract to build the engines for the Carrier the project would stall, and hemorrhage money. This money, as well as the companies other projects taxed off in other ways to help, would produce enough money to laundered and given back to the government to buy more Arrows.

The judge, jury, lawyers, defendant and even his family are in on this. Volunteering their time these people work for the CSIS to assume the characters for a high-octane drama involving opium, alcohol, golf clubs and cars exploding while people walk away. It makes the papers, it totally has to. Using agents in the USSR Canada finds out when the story reaches the Kremlin, and after that time it's a mere few months to let the money keep flowing until it can effectively disappear into the CSIS' front companies and back into government accounts to finance the Arrows.

The drama involving the Engine Company dies down (harsh ex-mistress comes to the court room and "kills" the husband and wife, relocated by CSIS to a home in the Bermuda Triangle;)) and the carrier has stalled long enough to be obsolete. Plus the idea of a nuclear carrier guarding the commercial carriers appeals to the military now. The commercial carrier is due to be instead sold to Australia (who suffered some drama of their own;)) and the Arrows "halted" in mid production in order to get this new Nuclear Carrier for Canada.

The Arrows are snapped up by other nations, and Canada rolls it eyes collectively :)rolleyes:) and keeps producing arrows for the home market and a civilian variant. As time ticks down to the Nuclear Carrier joining the Australian-Canadian Force guarding the two Commercial Carriers (One between Hawaii and BC, the other between Australia and Hawaii, short-range planes allowed to go long distances for cheap:D) the price of oil starts going up (as it seems to do ;)).

This makes the project more viable (maybe?) and while Canada develops new headway in international travel the money from the Arrow comes in, the Commercial Carriers are a success, it's cheap to fly to Australia and the Americans are happy since Hawaii's getting a bit of extra tourism.

The USSR is stuck spinning around, wondering how only a few years ago Canada was only going to buy one other carrier, probably not going to produce the Arrow and eventually back down on keeping nuclear missiles...

HE SHOOTS HE SCORES!;)
 
4229293483_652e2f46e4.jpg


Yes...that's a CF-18 next to a mock-up of an Arrow cockpit. I thought that was a kick-ass picture as well...

I stood right there in the National Aviation Museum this summer past, between seeing this and the Iroquois engine it was great... oh and not to mention the CL-84 Dynavert.
Highly reccomended stop if you are in Ottawa.
 

Archibald

Banned
Back in 2002-2005 I had an Arrow-mania.

Here's a take at Arrow possible evolution.

In the Arrow everything was canadian: the engines, the airframe... fortunately, not the radar / missile.

Early in the program history it decided that the Arrow would have an off-the-shelf fire and control system: that of the F-106 Delta Dart = MG-10, Falcon AAM.
Period.
This proved a bold move: not only it cut cost down, but it also make the aircraft "friendy" with NORAD and SAGE.

So the Arrow RL-201 flew on October, 4, 1957.
The year 1958 went on. Mid-november the aircraft reached Mach 1.96, while climbing, still accelerating.

The St Laurent governement thrusted the program, and it went on post 1959. From RL-206 they had the Iroquois, and soon records started to fall from the sky - Mach 2.2, mach 2.3, mach 2.45 in 1961 !

From 1961 numbers of Mark II Arrows rolled out of Malton production line.

Then history took another twist. In september 1959 the F-108 Rapier had been killed at mock-up stage... except its radar and missile. The fantastic AN/ASG-18 and AIM-47 had no aircraft.

Pending the approval of another Mach 3 fighter USAF decided to test AN/ASG-18 and AIM-47 further.
Of course a testbed was needed. The B-58 Hustler looked like an obvious choice, but the Arrow was prefered.

RL-209 was destocked at Malton and send to Edwards AFB. It was heavily modified with the big radar; the fatter nose soon earned the plane the nickname "Snoopy".

Snoopy proved a valuable testbed and remained at Edwards until 1968, firing AIM-47s at targets drones.

It was at this time that the threat of the Mig-25 emerged. Soon the western world discovered, panick stricken that the Phantom and its Sparrow were not up the task. Israeli and Iranians Phantoms failed to catch Soviet and Syrian Foxbats.

So the Shah sought another machine, and heard of the Arrow. With iranian money flooding Avro Canada, a batch of
Mark IV CF-105s soon found its way to Iran. Soon Foxbats fell from the sky.
 
So, since Canada has two oceans the government publicly announces they're going to get another one in the 195...uh....four or five. It's all good until some minor quibble about how god damn expensive it is to go to Australia for Canadians...

So, in order to subsidize travel around the world the Canadian Forces are not joined by one aircraft carrier paid for by the Tax Payers but four of them. The first two are military vehicles and the next pair are commercially owned.

Yes... commercial air craft carriers can be a giant source of tax revenue. If you have a Pacific coast. So much routes just waiting to be opened, Air Canada is having wet dreams. Revenue Canada loves the estimates on long-term revenue from having a jump on international travel income, eventually it will be enough to pay off the carriers and planes the GoC chips in to buy.

...what?

You're talking about civilian airliners landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, rather than on pacific islands? Where are you getting this from?

So, while the carriers are being made (or bought from the Americans if the commercial people don't want to wait for so long:rolleyes:)...

Why would Canada even try to invest in the construction of aircraft carriers instead of British or American castoffs? They're there for the taking at this point, and will be right up through the decommissioning of the Forrestal-class in the early 90's. (Though Forrestal would be rather large for Canada to try to man).

Lastly, what's any of this got to do with the Arrow? Avro'd probably do better to start over from scratch in designing a carrier-based aircraft, or maybe along the lines of developing the F/A-18 from the F-17 project.
 
The problem is of course, supposing even if it got accepted into service, how many could the RCAF even afford? By the time of it's cancellation, per unit costs had risen to some 12 million dollars per plane whereas comparable US designs ran for about a quarter of a million dollars (stat from J.L Granatstein Who killed the Canadian Miliary?) that means for every 1 Avro Arrow, you'd be able to purchase 48 other fighters. Sure they'd be of lesser quality but quantity has a quality all it's own and unlike the Arrows that wouldn't come online until the 1960's at the earliest, they were available immediately. Also it's high cost pretty much puts it out of the buying range of everyone but the USA (never mind it's limited applications)

IMO the only way the Arrow's ever going to get built is if somewhere along the design process, a dose of realism is thrown in. Without the distractions of the over complicated fire control system, the Sparrow II (fire and forget missile WAY to advanced for it's time, eventually abandoned after considerable capital had been wasted by the Canadian Government), and the Orenda Iroquois engine (a nice touch but ultimately superfluous given the performance of the plane without it), the Arrow would have been done much earlier and at a much more palatable cost. Of course it wouldn't have been the super-plane that it has been mythologized to be then, but at least it would have made it into service.

That being said, I have my doubts as to how effective it would be as a multi-role plane. True enough, the Arrow would have been an excellent interceptor, flying higher, faster, and further than it's contemporaries. But I have serious doubts about it's maneuverability (esp. at low speeds/altitudes), payload capacity (everything's in an internal bay, not sure how the wings would handle additional load with the landing gear.), and it's ease of maintenance. Not sure how well the Arrow would do in various other roles (other than perhaps recon in which it'd do fine).

Another thought, when you look at it objectively, the CF-105 is a lot like the XF-108 Rapier that the US was developing at the same time. Now the Rapier was eventually cancelled for a number of well thought out reasons, many of which, I'd wager were similar to those used to justify the cancellation of the Avro Arrow.

Though I too once believed that cancelling the Arrow was one of Canada's greatest mistakes in the 20th century, I now believe that it was the right decision, albeit one that was handled poorly (especially the aftermath) by Diefenbaker and subsequent Prime Ministers of Canada.
 
The problem is of course, supposing even if it got accepted into service, how many could the RCAF even afford? By the time of it's cancellation, per unit costs had risen to some 12 million dollars per plane whereas comparable US designs ran for about a quarter of a million dollars (stat from J.L Granatstein Who killed the Canadian Miliary?) that means for every 1 Avro Arrow, you'd be able to purchase 48 other fighters. Sure they'd be of lesser quality but quantity has a quality all it's own and unlike the Arrows that wouldn't come online until the 1960's at the earliest, they were available immediately.....

What plane available in 1959 cost $250,000? The F106 entered production in 1959, but it cost $4.7 million and the F4B entered production in 1960 and F4E cost $2.4 million but that was at the hieght of Vietnam when 72 F4s were being built per month. The F101 was in production in 1957 and it cost $1.75 million but it is hardly in the league of the F4B/F106/Arrow.

As for service life the Arrow was in that timeframe where planes plateued, people realised that Mach 3 required special materials and wasn't worth the effort. So like the F4, Mirage and others the Arrow will have 20-25 years in service. I'd imagine there would be continual product improvement, especially when it was realised that the Arrow would be it for Canadian industry and the RCAF wouldn't be getting many new planes for some time. Things like wing slats, dog tooths and fences could improve wing performance and maneuvreability. Pylons would be added to increase payload and before long it would be given a secondary strike role. However I think a big job would be the NATO interceptor role, i could see European NATO begging to have an Arrow wing stationed in Europe in the 60s and 70s for the crude role of drilling Frontal Aviation.
 
I just ordered the (fairly fanciful) TV movie, and it got me wondering...suppose it had gotten into service, how long could it have stayed in before a replacement would've been needed?

Yeah...I know I'm ripping open the wound again. I of all people know that. I'm watching YouTube footage and I had to pull my head out of my hands to type this.

God damn but it's a beautiful plane...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lTGTPQlDE&feature=related


4229293483_652e2f46e4.jpg


Yes...that's a CF-18 next to a mock-up of an Arrow cockpit. I thought that was a kick-ass picture as well...

Um, Mac? 'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think that's an actual cockpit from the scrap heap. We also have real-deal wing tips from the Arrow in that museum.
 

Blair152

Banned
I just ordered the (fairly fanciful) TV movie, and it got me wondering...suppose it had gotten into service, how long could it have stayed in before a replacement would've been needed?

Yeah...I know I'm ripping open the wound again. I of all people know that. I'm watching YouTube footage and I had to pull my head out of my hands to type this.

God damn but it's a beautiful plane...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8lTGTPQlDE&feature=related


4229293483_652e2f46e4.jpg


Yes...that's a CF-18 next to a mock-up of an Arrow cockpit. I thought that was a kick-ass picture as well...
I think I saw the same thing. Not sure though. The CF-18 was cancelled because the Canadian Cabinet took one look at the program and thought it was too expensive at that time. This would be the '50s, if I'm not mistaken, and pulled the contract from Avro. The conspiracy theories about the alleged "real reason" why it was cancelled are numerous.
 
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