THE AVRO CF-105 ARROW - WAS IT REALLY THAT GOOD?!? (1 Viewer)

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AIR 7-3 Supersonic All-Weather Interceptor Aircraft Specs.

(which became the AVRO Arrow, CF-105)

+ Operate from a 6,000 ft. runway
+ A range of 6,000 nautical miles
+ capable of accelerating to Mach 1.5
+ To have a crew of 2, a pilot and a navigator
+ Carry an advanced weapons system with an advanced targetting system.
+ Capable of operating in Canada's harsh environment
+ Manoeuvre at 50,000 ft while pulling 2 G's
+ Two engines.

I hope this answers a few questions
Regards
Reed Park
 
Ran across a neat little bit of info related to the Arrow in a issue of Air Space Smithsonian. The head test pilot Jan Zurakowski and long time aviator never had a official pilot's license. The reason given was he never had to apply for one, and was such a good pilot, no one thought to inquire about it.
 
Ran across a neat little bit of info related to the Arrow in a issue of Air Space Smithsonian. The head test pilot Jan Zurakowski and long time aviator never had a official pilot's license. The reason given was he never had to apply for one, and was such a good pilot, no one thought to inquire about it.

Eddie Rickenbacker never had a pilot's license as well.

In Zurakowski's case he was flying a military aircraft for the Canadian government. In many cases military pilots (and former military pilots) never get licenses if they are employed flying government aircraft.
 
My dad worked and was part of the design team for the Iroquois power plant. He was also freinds with Jan. Jan would tell my dad after (what he called"just another day of tests") that the 105 was as prefect as a plane can be,and was waiting for the Orenda engine to arrive. He(my dad) told me the engine thrust specs were underrated. And yes it would have been an absolutely magnificent aircraft had if been fitted with them. It never saw service but,who cares. It was and still be one of the best airplane ever built and designed.
 
It was and still be one of the best airplane ever built and designed.

No, sorry to say...

In its day it had to be the potential of being the worlds premier interceptor, but it had the maneuverability of a brick. An F-5 would dance around it provided it allowed itself to get into a close-in fight. The North American F-108 was being built just after the Arrow was cancelled and "would have" been a much more advanced aircraft. Not to berate Canada, Canadians or the Arrow, it was a great plane in it's day but if built, would have been very obsolete by the mid 1970s.
 
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I now one of the test pilots tolled my dad they where under orders to not go over mach 2.He tolled him one time he had to go into a clime not to go over mach 2.The one I love is they all would from time to time go up to 50 to 60'000ft put the engines to Idell and glide back to Toronto.
 
Much is made of the 308 mil or whatever that was Deif's big excuse for dumping the Arrow. But money spent in-country comes back into the economy, all those employees pay taxes back into the kitty, corporate taxes come back, even the money spent on groceries and dentist bills for their kids, all that remains in the country. Buy something from another country and that's all gone.
And anyway, they didn't get that money back with the cancellation. 500 million with squadrons to show for it is better than 308 with nothing to show except a mass migration of the best men in the industry to greener pastures Southward and overseas.
My mother worked for Deif the Chief, and my Dad kept a running correspondence going with him for 20 years. I met him once, he had a commanding tangible "presence" and the gift of the gab, but in the final analysis he was a small-town lawyer who was out of his depth dealing with world issues. He was sold a bill of goods on his "fishing trip" to meet the US prez, and bought in to the unmanned interceptor Bomarc crock of s**t. Even the Yankees didn't stick with that boondoggle for very long.
BTW, the blueprints for the Arrow and many of the flight reports surfaced on the Antiques Roadshow a few years ago, so they still exist.
An old friend worked at Malton in the '50's and he claimed to the day he died that there were only 5 Arrows destroyed and the last, Orenda-engined one was squirreled away somewhere. Nice thought, but where would you hide a plane that big and unique? Hard to camouflage it as a derelict C47 or some such!
 
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BTW, the blueprints for the Arrow and many of the flight reports surfaced on the Antiques Roadshow a few years ago, so they still exist.
Very cool stuff to see, it's the tooling that actually builds the aircraft.

An old friend worked at Malton in the '50's and he claimed to the day he died that there were only 5 Arrows destroyed and the last, Orenda-engined one was squirreled away somewhere. Nice thought, but where would you hide a plane that big and unique? Hard to camouflage it as a derelict C47 or some such!
When I lived in Canada I heard that story several times over. IMO it's someone's wishful conspiracy theory. The Arrow, even with the Orenda would have been technically obsolete by the early 70s in it's original form.
 
Still should have been built. After all they did build the F-35 shite box
The F-35 is FAR from a shite box (as you put it). It is the most advanced aircraft ever built and will come with it's shares of teething problems. The Arrow was a great aircraft in it's day but would have been supassed pretty quickly in it's original form and would have been dismal in a close-in air-to-air role.

BTW, the F-35B is the current problem child. The F-35 A&C and progressing nicely.

Lockheed sees great progress on F-35 fighter | Reuters
F-35 JSF Testers Report Progress, Problems
Lockheed Martin
 

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