WI: after cancellation of the CF-105 Arrow, the RCAF acquires English Electric Lightnings?

[iron]

The RCAF bought the CF104 for the NATO nuclear strike then conventional attack role based in Germany, not for air defence in Canada as part of NORAD.

I'd suggest that the Canadians buy 60 - 75 Arrow Mk2 for the NORAD role instead of 66 CF101 and 56 BOMARCs then ~150 multi-role Arrow Mk3 for the NATO role instead of 200 CF104s. A 200+ units production run would make the whole project viable and would have lower support overheads than having a fleet of CF101s and another fleet of CF104s

A couple of problems with this idea.

First and foremost, the "Mark 3" Arrow does not exist, other than as a napkin sketch. The amount of engineering that would be required to redesign this aircraft (to meet a role it was never intended for) would be staggering. As it was, the interceptor was already way behind in its flight testing schedule; all available resources were being dedicated to getting this back on track at the point of project termination.
Also, a huge twin engine "pure" Delta is probably the worst planform you could think of to turn into a low level penetration/strike aircraft. The ride down in the weeds would be virtually intolerable for the crew at high subsonic speeds.
Read a little about the usaf's testing with the B-58 "Hustler" at low level/high subsonic. The arrow was not quite as large as the hustler, but it was definitely close.
As this was right at the moment that NATO was realizing that the Soviets had built a rather formidable SAM capability against high flying aircraft, everything was being refocused towards low level penetrations.
I would think that by the time you could get all of the engineering and redesign work completed to make this into a marginally acceptable strike aircraft, you're looking at the mid-60s, at best.
Using the existing Mark II design in NATO (as an all weather fighter, a la CF-100) would likewise be a difficult transition for the design (that had evolved by 1959). The AIM-4, by default the primary air-to-air weapon to be carried, was simply not suitable for use against manoeuvring targets. Plan B would have to be the AIR-2 Genie. I'd love to see the reaction of the West German government with regards to that one.

Another note on a different part of the discussion. The RCAF/GOC never "bought" the CF-101 or the AIR-2 that it carried. These remained USAF property throughout their service lives in Canada. The RCAF paid life cycle costs on the engines, airframes, and avionics, all associated O&M expenses, and I believe we did actually buy our "own" AIM-4 Falcons. I may be wrong on that last part however. The BOMARC deal was a little more complicated but rather similar.
Canada provided manning and maintenance support for the large bulk of the US built radar installations located on Canadian territory in exchange. Also, the supply and maintenance aspects of the leases held by the USAF/SAC for bases on Canadian territory were involved during negotiations.
We stood down use of the Voodoo capability in 1984 and had to go through a considerable pile of hoops in order to keep a portion of the machines as museum pieces and gate Guardians.
They were still USAF property and had to be written off through the proper channels to allow for this.

 

[Blue cat]

I've never seen that map before in all of my years hunting around for stuff on the CF-105. Most interesting. I think it's safe to presume that a lot of these FOBs they are showing here would have required significant upgrading to the runways/support infrastructure in order to operate the Arrow safely. The Mk1 needed a ton of runway to get back on the ground and the weight it would shed with the PS13 installation was more than offset by the operational equipment. There were investigations made into arrestor barrier and ZELL capabilities for the aircraft by Avro and some drawings still exist.
Preliminary indications were that the Iroquois would have a somewhat better SFC than did the early J75-P5 but the fact remains that unless you want to punch the cans (and burn a significant amount of your fuel getting it off the ground) you will also need a fair amount of real estate to get airborne.
Then there's the matter of building all of the local infrastructure at each one of these locations to allow for indoor storage/ maintenance in the 8 months of winter. I would think that it would be a minimum manpower requirement pushing 5 to 600 bodies at each location by the time you considered everything required to support a capability such as this.
You need a Central heating plant, an MSE section to deal with the operations and maintenance of the snow plows, fuel bowsers, mules, and all of the other vehicles. You need an administrative arm, a barracks, a mess hall, a supply section, CE.
In short, pretty much everything you would find on a regular RCAF base of the time period, just smaller sized detachments.
This is going to cost boku money, which is of course something that Avro doesn't really take into consideration LOL.
You could probably do this "on the cheap" and only upgrade to the point where you can surge the capability forward during times of crisis.
However...
The runway upgrades are irrevocable, as are the basic runway maintenance vehicles and their attendant infrastructure (IOW, a fully staffed MSE section, at least during the winter). Much of the other stuff could be more temporary in nature. Fuel and basic maintenance parts could be pre-sited. I would think that the weapons loadouts and armorers, airframe, electronics, and aero-engine mechanics as well as ancillary support staff would be flown forward from main bases at Cold Lake, Churchill, and Goose Bay. All of these locations had adequate infrastructure in place by 1957 to support operational squadrons of Arrows.

Digression:
The USAF had spent a lot of money on improving these three (as well as RCAF Namao) to support B-36 and tanker operations. This SAC infrastructure remains (though largely abandoned) to this day. 419 Sqd. is located on the "SAC site" at Cold Lake. Not a lot of Canadians know about this part of our past.

On another note, I am really curious as to the communication system they were thinking of using in conjunction with the DEW line stations. My father was an RCAF air traffic controller and served in Fort Nelson BC, Churchill Manitoba, as well as TD at a couple of other detachment locations in the North during this very time period. By his account, radio communications could often be "problematic", to say the least.
I did find some drawings of proposed hangers for these FOB locations by digging around on the link you provided. This would be a pretty substantial undertaking to bring the more remote locations proposed on the map up to operational status.
As to numbers, you'd require at least 100 operational Arrows (as well as the 69 proposed attrition machines) to do this.
This would present a very formidable RCAF defense capability (assuming 150-200 hostiles), no US ADC help required.

The total cost would be eyewatering however.

Yes the communications part of this interests me as well. The second page of the link I posted seems to imply to me that they were expecting to get a 500 NM range from the radar sites to the air craft using various (for the time) advanced communications technologies (most likely HF (AKA Shortwave) radios would have been needed to get that type of range in that era..) Relying on HF or similar beyond line of sight radios seems interesting to me for that type of mission but presumably it was expected to work at least well enough for the interceptors to at least get within line of sight radio range of the radar sites. Jamming might have been seen as a problem with simple voice radios, so perhaps the RCAF would have wanted high power UHF data links (and probably some form of SAGE data link system to go along with them (and to recap some prior posts I haven't come across any references of the DEW line sites having this type of equipment) this would in turn cost even more money.

I suspect the interceptor bases would also have needed dedicated point to point beyond line of sight tropospheric scatter links tied into the DEW line system (if those links were not already in place) both to communicate with the radar sites and possibly to communicate with NORAD which in turn could cost even more money. I suspect the RCAF would have wanted military grade communications with the interceptor bases in war time. Maybe there was some stuff from the Mid Canada line and some of the back haul arrangements for the DEW line sites that could have been leveraged but who knows if those systems had enough extra capacity.

Edit to add, the second page of the link does speak to some advanced technologies providing jamming resistance..

All of this is just speculation on my part.

 

[foresterab]

As I understand things.. The NORAD Concept of Operations vis a vis air defense in and around Canada in that time frame mostly called for air craft to be intercepted while they were within the radar coverage of the pine tree line, presumably as far north as possible. (I seem to recall at least some of the DEW line stations had some modest abilities to control interceptors, but as I understand things the DEW line was mostly to provide warning.)

In my view just because Canada didn't have peace time operating bases to cover the entire area of the Pine tree line didn't imply that air craft wouldn't have been intercepted in those areas in war time and my understanding is the early NORAD agreements envisioned both nations defending each others air space to varying degrees. At some point the NORAD agreement was changed to make each nation more or less responsible for defending their own air space but I don't believe that was the case in the time frame we are discussing. I seem to recall the USAF had interceptors based in the northern parts of the CONUS that presumably would have been available to intercept aircraft in war time once they entered the coverage of the pine tree line in the time frame we are discussing, and or perhaps US and Canadian forces might have been dispersed in war time.

IMHO these discussions tend to focus far to much on air craft and far to little on radar sites, C3I systems etc and the concept of a joint air defense organization all seems to get missed at times.

I believe much later there was more of an emphasis on northern operations but by that time AWACS aircraft, refueling tankers, northern dispersal bases etc were available, plus I suspect the absence of nuclear armed air to air weapons may have made dispersing forces a bit simpler for the Canadians.

Sorry for the vagueness, it has been a while since I have read / studied this stuff in detail.

I grew up in the shadow of one of the pine tree bases. Was relatively common to have planes coming in from either Alaska or Montana? Or Cold Lake with the aggressors coming in tree top until they hit the base then going vertical on afterburners and mock dogfighting. Tornados were the worst for low level sound damages.

local air raid siren would go off, all base staff scramble and exercise held. Depending on the aggressor force it was hours or sometimes very short notice before the planes showed up. Followed by newspaper ads and radio broadcasts on how to place a claim if you had damages from low level jets flying overhead.

local base had ice cream, movie theatre and bowling alley so was a big deal to be invited over.

memories aside radar base detection definitely trumped aircraft onboard radar.

 

[iron]

Yes the communications part of this interests me as well. The second page of the link I posted seems to imply to me that they were expecting to get a 500 NM range from the radar sites to the air craft using various (for the time) advanced communications technologies (most likely HF (AKA Shortwave) radios would have been needed to get that type of range in that era..) Relying on HF or similar beyond line of sight radios seems interesting to me for that type of mission but presumably it was expected to work at least well enough for the interceptors to at least get within line of sight radio range of the radar sites. Jamming might have been seen as a problem with simple voice radios, so perhaps the RCAF would have wanted high power UHF data links (and probably some form of SAGE data link system to go along with them (and to recap some prior posts I haven't come across any references of the DEW line sites having this type of equipment) this would in turn cost even more money.

I suspect the interceptor bases would also have needed dedicated point to point beyond line of sight tropospheric scatter links tied into the DEW line system (if those links were not already in place) both to communicate with the radar sites and possibly to communicate with NORAD which in turn could cost even more money. I suspect the RCAF would have wanted military grade communications with the interceptor bases in war time. Maybe there was some stuff from the Mid Canada line and some of the back haul arrangements for the DEW line sites that could have been leveraged but who knows if those systems had enough extra capacity.

All of this is just speculation on my part.

Over the horizon backscatter equipment was a pretty nascent technology at the time. Things in this field were evolving at a ridiculous rate, both for communications, as well as for radar usage. The transient nature of the atmospheric electromagnetic activity in the North played havoc with these systems and they were constantly trying different approaches to overcome this problem. Dad's service record shows him ping-ponging and back and forth between operational duty up north and (re)training courses in the south from the time of his first operational posting in late 1953 forward. He said that it was a blessed relief when he was posted to 1(F) Wing in Marville, France at the beginning of 1957, just because he could finally unpack his foot locker and know that he wouldn't have to be packing it again for a few years lol! When he returned to Canada at the beginning of 1961 they sent him back to Churchill and he noted that the communications systems in use by that point were finally showing some signs of improvement. And of course, within the year, he had to pack his foot locker and head to Winnipeg for 4 months for retraining on yet another improved system...

 

[iron]

I grew up in the shadow of one of the pine tree bases. Was relatively common to have planes coming in from either Alaska or Montana? Or Cold Lake with the aggressors coming in tree top until they hit the base then going vertical on afterburners and mock dogfighting. Tornados were the worst for low level sound damages.

local air raid siren would go off, all base staff scramble and exercise held. Depending on the aggressor force it was hours or sometimes very short notice before the planes showed up. Followed by newspaper ads and radio broadcasts on how to place a claim if you had damages from low level jets flying overhead.

local base had ice cream, movie theatre and bowling alley so was a big deal to be invited over.

memories aside radar base detection definitely trumped aircraft onboard radar.

Beaverlodge? Up by Grande Prairie?
With your mention of tornadoes it would have to be there during Maple flag or at Goose Bay when the NATO low-level training for the German air force was happening.

 

[Blue cat]

Over the horizon backscatter equipment was a pretty nascent technology at the time. Things in this field were evolving at a ridiculous rate, both for communications, as well as for radar usage. The transient nature of the atmospheric electromagnetic activity in the North played havoc with these systems and they were constantly trying different approaches to overcome this problem. Dad's service record shows him ping-ponging and back and forth between operational duty up north and (re)training courses in the south from the time of his first operational posting in late 1953 forward. He said that it was a blessed relief when he was posted to 1(F) Wing in Marville, France at the beginning of 1957, just because he could finally unpack his foot locker and know that he wouldn't have to be packing it again for a few years lol! When he returned to Canada at the beginning of 1961 they sent him back to Churchill and he noted that the communications systems in use by that point were finally showing some signs of improvement. And of course, within the year, he had to pack his foot locker and head to Winnipeg for 4 months for retraining on yet another improved system...

Interesting and thanks for sharing. Years ago I worked with a former civilian radar operator from the DEW line era. He had some interesting stories to tell about the tropospheric scatter links they (mostly ?) used for reporting what they saw on the radars. The impression I got from him was at least in his era the communications systems seemed to basically work although I doubt they were of a standard that civilian telephone customers would have accepted

 

[foresterab]

I'm not convinced all the basing arrangements shown in the map were ever something the RCAF seriously entertained doing. That being said I suppose it does give a perspective of how a long range interceptor might have been used and some form of effort to carry out intercepts as air craft transit the DEW line coverage seems plausible to me, but to recap as far as I am aware the SAGE system was never tied into the DEW line radars in terms of data links to control interceptors.

Re the radars my understanding is that the pine tree line was somewhat upgraded over time with better radars and included height finding radars, teams of controllers to manage intercepts and later interfaces with the SAGE system (that feautred the data links to the interceptors) were also phased in.

The mid Canada line was phased out over time although my recollection is the USAF seemed a bit more enthused about its performance than the Canadians were.

The DEW line would have provided the US (and Canada) with much more warning time than the pine tree line.

My understanding of the DEW line bases is that while they had the geographic location to fill the gaps and were technically secret locations everyone knew where they were. Lower power stations that were isolated, tough to maintain and limited range radar. Was good for low level strike detection.

Pine tree on the other hand was further south, much easier maintain and had significantly more capacity. Heard many rumours on range but it’s much wider than most think - artic ocean to Montana seems to commonly accepted. This is very accurate for higher level flights but not clear on its capacity for low level strikes.

apparently all the radars did not record below 15’ height as discovered off of Attu Island. Local Eskimo walked up to base gates to ask for coffee and got arrested for trespassing. When asked how he got there undetected he said he’d walked over and pointed at the bearing sea. As security flipped out he mentioned the Russians across the straight didn’t have coffee either. 15’ waves in summer meant they didn’t adjust for winter and people walking on ice

 

[marathag]

The AIM-4, by default the primary air-to-air weapon to be carried, was simply not suitable for use against manoeuvring targets. Plan B would have to be the AIR-2 Genie.

Plan B would have been the AIM-26 nuclear Falcon, or the conventional version the Swedes got from Hughes.
Plan C would have been the long range, Mach 6 AIM-47 that eventually became Phoenix.
IMO, had a air-to-air with MiGs been envisioned for Arrow initially, or added later, they would have gone with Sidewinder, like everybody else did.

 

[Blue cat]

Plan B would have been the AIM-26 nuclear Falcon, or the conventional version the Swedes got from Hughes.
Plan C would have been the long range, Mach 6 AIM-47 that eventually became Phoenix.
IMO, had a air-to-air with MiGs been envisioned for Arrow initially, or added later, they would have gone with Sidewinder, like everybody else did.

Yeah maybe several squadrons of long range / high speed interceptors armed with AIM-47's might have been welcomed by NATO. I suspect the costs involved would have been significant.

 

[marathag]

Yeah maybe several squadrons of long range / high speed interceptors armed with AIM-47's might have been welcomed by NATO. I suspect the costs involved would have been significant.

True, but would have been effective, going by how well the Phoenix in Iranian service did against Iraqi MiGs and Mirage

 

[foresterab]

Yeah, if you look at the site listings for DEW and Pine Tree Line radars, there's more than a few gap-filler locations using short-range dumb radars that were usually unmanned and checked on every couple months, and only in summer. And the "intermediate" manned sites...holy hell, I can't think of a worse posting than one of these. Absolute middle of frozen nowhere, with a crew of just a station chief, a mechanic and a cook. I gotta assume they rotated out often to prevent getting all cabin fever-y...but then again, getting around that far north in winter isn't exactly reliable, so maybe they did stay a while.

There was often more people and ironically it’s easier in many cases to get around in winter due to ski equipped planes and ice roads. Most were built using winter transport to create rough airstrips and then supplied via freight plane or helicopter.

locals used to visit as they tended to be well stocked, especially with booze.

 

[Riain]

Another note on a different part of the discussion. The RCAF/GOC never "bought" the CF-101 or the AIR-2 that it carried. These remained USAF property throughout their service lives in Canada. The RCAF paid life cycle costs on the engines, airframes, and avionics, all associated O&M expenses, and I believe we did actually buy our "own" AIM-4 Falcons. I may be wrong on that last part however. The BOMARC deal was a little more complicated but rather similar.

Are you saying no money changed hands to get CF101s into the RCAF? The reason I ask is that the US puts considerable conditions on the sale of it's military equipment, one in particular is that you can't change the stated use without US approval, such as selling or gifting platforms or parts or changing a warship to a dive wreck or disposing by destruction or putting a plane on a stick at an airbase. People often believe this means that a country doesn't own the gear it buys. What's more the likes of Britain and France don't put such stipulations on their gear, which is why countries like the make their own military hardware or mix and match suppliers.

Canada may have been a special case but IIUC by the 60s Congress had seriously limited or even stopped appropriating money for foreign countries' arms purchases.

 

[Blue cat]

Are you saying no money changed hands to get CF101s into the RCAF? The reason I ask is that the US puts considerable conditions on the sale of it's military equipment, one in particular is that you can't change the stated use without US approval, such as selling or gifting platforms or parts or changing a warship to a dive wreck or disposing by destruction or putting a plane on a stick at an airbase. People often believe this means that a country doesn't own the gear it buys. What's more the likes of Britain and France don't put such stipulations on their gear, which is why countries like the make their own military hardware or mix and match suppliers.

Canada may have been a special case but IIUC by the 60s Congress had seriously limited or even stopped appropriating money for foreign countries' arms purchases.

I'm not sure what the deal was with the first batch, but you may find this link of interest re the second batch..

PEACE WINGS - Canada.ca

Historical information about Operation PEACE WINGS.

www.canada.ca

 

[cjc]

A couple of problems with this idea.

First and foremost, the "Mark 3" Arrow does not exist, other than as a napkin sketch. The amount of engineering that would be required to redesign this aircraft (to meet a role it was never intended for) would be staggering. As it was, the interceptor was already way behind in its flight testing schedule; all available resources were being dedicated to getting this back on track at the point of project termination.
Also, a huge twin engine "pure" Delta is probably the worst planform you could think of to turn into a low level penetration/strike aircraft. The ride down in the weeds would be virtually intolerable for the crew at high subsonic speeds.
Read a little about the usaf's testing with the B-58 "Hustler" at low level/high subsonic. The arrow was not quite as large as the hustler, but it was definitely close.
As this was right at the moment that NATO was realizing that the Soviets had built a rather formidable SAM capability against high flying aircraft, everything was being refocused towards low level penetrations.
I would think that by the time you could get all of the engineering and redesign work completed to make this into a marginally acceptable strike aircraft, you're looking at the mid-60s, at best.
Using the existing Mark II design in NATO (as an all weather fighter, a la CF-100) would likewise be a difficult transition for the design (that had evolved by 1959). The AIM-4, by default the primary air-to-air weapon to be carried, was simply not suitable for use against manoeuvring targets. Plan B would have to be the AIR-2 Genie. I'd love to see the reaction of the West German government with regards to that one.

Another note on a different part of the discussion. The RCAF/GOC never "bought" the CF-101 or the AIR-2 that it carried. These remained USAF property throughout their service lives in Canada. The RCAF paid life cycle costs on the engines, airframes, and avionics, all associated O&M expenses, and I believe we did actually buy our "own" AIM-4 Falcons. I may be wrong on that last part however. The BOMARC deal was a little more complicated but rather similar.
Canada provided manning and maintenance support for the large bulk of the US built radar installations located on Canadian territory in exchange. Also, the supply and maintenance aspects of the leases held by the USAF/SAC for bases on Canadian territory were involved during negotiations.
We stood down use of the Voodoo capability in 1984 and had to go through a considerable pile of hoops in order to keep a portion of the machines as museum pieces and gate Guardians.
They were still USAF property and had to be written off through the proper channels to allow for this.

But the mirage IV (wich wasn't much smaller then the arrow) had zero problems transitioning to do gust that.

 

[iron]

That is indeed what I am saying. We were in a very, very different set of circumstances when that particular deal was done. Canada held a huge amount of leverage in the bilateral relationship at the time. We had been punching way above our weight class (with regards to our military) for about 10 years by that point.

 

[Riain]

A couple of problems with this idea.

First and foremost, the "Mark 3" Arrow does not exist, other than as a napkin sketch. The amount of engineering that would be required to redesign this aircraft (to meet a role it was never intended for) would be staggering. As it was, the interceptor was already way behind in its flight testing schedule; all available resources were being dedicated to getting this back on track at the point of project termination.
Also, a huge twin engine "pure" Delta is probably the worst planform you could think of to turn into a low level penetration/strike aircraft. The ride down in the weeds would be virtually intolerable for the crew at high subsonic speeds.
Read a little about the usaf's testing with the B-58 "Hustler" at low level/high subsonic. The arrow was not quite as large as the hustler, but it was definitely close.
As this was right at the moment that NATO was realizing that the Soviets had built a rather formidable SAM capability against high flying aircraft, everything was being refocused towards low level penetrations.
I would think that by the time you could get all of the engineering and redesign work completed to make this into a marginally acceptable strike aircraft, you're looking at the mid-60s, at best.
Using the existing Mark II design in NATO (as an all weather fighter, a la CF-100) would likewise be a difficult transition for the design (that had evolved by 1959). The AIM-4, by default the primary air-to-air weapon to be carried, was simply not suitable for use against manoeuvring targets. Plan B would have to be the AIR-2 Genie. I'd love to see the reaction of the West German government with regards to that one.

In 1959 the RCAF changed its contribution to NATO from fighters (Sabres and Canucks) to low level nuclear strike with F104G/CF104s. If Canada stayed with the Arrow it could have kept it's existing fighter role using the Arrow, and as the Arrow matured in capabilities during production this role could be expanded and perhaps new capabilites such as ground attack would be added.

In addition the disadvantages of the delta in the ground attack role is overblown, virtually every country that bought the Mirage III/V used it in the attack role successfully for decades, the Mirage IV was used in the low level strike role as was the Vulcan. There are plenty of other big wing, gust-prone aircraft that were used in the low level strike role successfully for decades such as the RA5C Vigilante, the F4 and F15. This isn't to say that the F104/TSR2/F111/Tornado aren't better in this part of the performance envelope, just that if the Arrow was pursued then the users would make the most of what they had rather than throwing up their hands and crying 'gust response'.

Plan B would have been the AIM-26 nuclear Falcon, or the conventional version the Swedes got from Hughes.
Plan C would have been the long range, Mach 6 AIM-47 that eventually became Phoenix.
IMO, had a air-to-air with MiGs been envisioned for Arrow initially, or added later, they would have gone with Sidewinder, like everybody else did.

Yeah maybe several squadrons of long range / high speed interceptors armed with AIM-47's might have been welcomed by NATO. I suspect the costs involved would have been significant.

This is what I think would happen if the Arrow went into production. IIUC the first production planes weren't due until 1962, production would continue for at least 3 or 4 years so during this time the weapons options would evolve. In this way the Arrow would be like the Lightning, the F6 being far more capable than the F1 of 5 years earlier.

 

[Ravinoff]

There was often more people and ironically it’s easier in many cases to get around in winter due to ski equipped planes and ice roads. Most were built using winter transport to create rough airstrips and then supplied via freight plane or helicopter.

locals used to visit as they tended to be well stocked, especially with booze.

Looked up some more data on the site designs. They were all built out of prefabbed modules 28'W/16'L/10'H. A "Main" site was two strings of 25 modules, with a staff of ~50, while Auxiliary sites were one 25-module "train" and about a dozen people. And the "Intermediate" versions I suspect sucked so hard would usually be 5 modules (about 40ft) long with a winter crew of 3-5. Layout for one of those looked like this:

Site I capped that of off also has a description of working on an I-site, and I stand by my assessment that one of those in winter has to be one of the most godawful postings imaginable. But maybe I've just read the (really great) 2/19th Special Weapons creepypasta/horror novellas too much...