F-ZeroOne Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 They've retired the Blackbird, Concorde no longer graces the stratosphere, the F-35 needs a diet, and the Typhoon thinks its on the ground when its in the sky... ...so I think its time for some good aircraft related news. Thanks to a grant from the UKs National Lottery, its going to be possible to restore the legendary Vulcan bomber to flight status! http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/j_falk/vulcan.htm (link for info on the Vulcan only) Some of you might remember the Vulcan from its appearance in the 007 film Thunderball. When I was younger, I was lucky enough to see one of these take off. Its an awesome sight; a real demonstration of delta-wing lift and raw power over gravity. The damn thing seems to hang in the air... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the white drew carey Posted June 27, 2004 Share Posted June 27, 2004 Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comicbookheros Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComicKaze Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye Ahh...the Canadian Supersonic Jetfighter. The best of it's time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yohsho Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Are there any of those Arrows still lying around? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Are there any of those Arrows still lying around? Now THAT is a huge debate. One might have escaped the governments cutting torches. The whole Arrow story is IMO, a tragedy. As a final stroke, the government demanded that all Arrows be scrapped where they sat, on the runway, and all models, sketches, papers, EVERYTHING be destroyed. but of course, stuff did survive, but an entire flyable aircraft? Most say no, but I personally like to think that maybe, somewhere, there might be one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angel's Fury Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Are there any of those Arrows still lying around? Now THAT is a huge debate. One might have escaped the governments cutting torches. The whole Arrow story is IMO, a tragedy. As a final stroke, the government demanded that all Arrows be scrapped where they sat, on the runway, and all models, sketches, papers, EVERYTHING be destroyed. but of course, stuff did survive, but an entire flyable aircraft? Most say no, but I personally like to think that maybe, somewhere, there might be one. Any aircraft plans that were saved? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Are there any of those Arrows still lying around? Now THAT is a huge debate. One might have escaped the governments cutting torches. The whole Arrow story is IMO, a tragedy. As a final stroke, the government demanded that all Arrows be scrapped where they sat, on the runway, and all models, sketches, papers, EVERYTHING be destroyed. but of course, stuff did survive, but an entire flyable aircraft? Most say no, but I personally like to think that maybe, somewhere, there might be one. Any aircraft plans that were saved? YUP!! I have a detailed schematic poster (approx. 4 feet x 6 feet) Check out this site for lots of Arrow pics, including schematic drawings. http://www.avroarrow.org/AvroArrow/index.html and more specifically.... http://www.avroarrow.org/AvroArrow/arrowtechdrawings2.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Sorry for helping hijack this topic. That is great news, regarding the Vulcan bomber. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye Ahh...the Canadian Supersonic Jetfighter. The best of it's time. Actually, it was classified as an interceptor. Imagine, Mach 2+ in 1958!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye You're not the only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angel's Fury Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye You're not the only one. Second that!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoryHolmes Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Now if only we could see the Arrow (AVRO CF-105) take off...... that would bring a tear to me eye  You're not the only one. Second that!!! Triple that, here. Bah, cancelling that project was probably only a PR move. There's probably whole fleets of them in hidden bases under the Canadian Shield... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 (edited) Here is one of the infamous "Death Row" pictures: Edited June 28, 2004 by Jedi Knight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North of 49 Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Great news about the Vulcan. Truly a unique plane. As for the Arrow, that was a tragedy. However it did start the great canadian tradition of: Why build it ourselves when we can buy it from someone else at a greater price and still have to fix it to make it work in our canadian climate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noyhauser Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 (edited) Most people Aren't going to like to hear this, but the decision to build the Arrow was about the biggest error ever in Canadian Procurement, and deserved the end it got. It's current reputation has been the result of mythologizing by the Canadian press and honestly it doesn't deserve any of the hype it gets. #1 The Avro Arrow was not the most advanced fighter of its day, sure it was fast, and had a lot of gadgets, but in the end it was a useless useless program. When it was concieved in the early 1950s, it was during the height of the Red bomber scare, where there fear was that Russia would send thousands of bombers over the north pole to nuke north america. Well by the late 1950s the Americans through the CIA and reconnaisance Flights figured out that the soviets had a mere pittance of bombers that was first imagined, and none had the range to reach north america's cities. Also the rise of the MRBM and the ICBM loomed a lot larger. So really the need for the Arrow was no there. #2 The Arrow was not exceptional fighter. In actuallity it fell victim to the same interceptor blinders that US fighters had in the pre-vietnam era, only the Arrow was just that much worse off. Since the Arrow was to take on soviet bombers, it had to be fast, carry a lot of missiles and a radar large enough to guide them - ie be interceptors. As a result it suffered the same flaws that the F-4 would experience over vietnam. It was big, fast, and very unmanuverable. It had absolutely no cockpit vision, and relied upon radar and untested missiles as weapons. It had no cannons or machinegun. It was to carry a missile called the Sparrow II which was a new version of the Sparrow that was a radar guided fire and forget missile. However it was canceled by the USAF because it was deemed unfeasable. So it would have to carry the notoriously bad Sparrow I missile. The Arrow's radar was untested as well. In a theoretical situation, had the Arrow ever got into a dog fight over vietnam, it would have been eaten alive by nimble Mig-17s and 21s. They would have a field day against the ungainy fighter that relied on poor missiles. The thing was fast as hell, and may have been even faster than anything in the world at the time in 1960 with the Orienda Iroqois engine, however it had abysmal range, less than 600KM. #3 The worst part of the project.- Cost. The thing was a money pit, and was about to get a lot worse. the cancelation of the Sparrow II would require a complete redesign of the system. The Radar system showed constant faults. The development costs for the Iroqois engine were insane. In many cases Canada did not have the industrial base to build its systems required and had to design them from scratch. Nobody was willing to buy it outside of canada, because it was so expensive and had little utility. Sure the fighter may have been the most advanced of its time, but pour enough money into something and you can have the best of anything. Prime Minister Diefenbaker rightly culled the project, and bought cheaper less capable fighters instead. It is kinda sad about what happened to the Canadian Aircraft industry afterwards, however in all honesty, the Arrow was an incredible disaster. Had it gone through, the Government would have been in such debt, and have an incredibly useless fighter for its troubles. So much the better. Edited June 28, 2004 by Noyhauser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoryHolmes Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 *claps his hands over his eyes* I didn't just read any of that! All jest aside, you do make several good points and most of them are true. However, it would've been nice to design and actually field some military equipment on our own, since I for one am tired of being the garage sale military country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 Another reason it was cancelled..........the US was convinced missiles were going to be the fighting vehicle of the future. So, the Canadian gov't bought all these silos, that TOTALLY failied in our northern climate. And look, fighters are STILL being designed, built and USED. I'm NOT trying to start any flame wars or arguments, but the Arrow was designed to be only an interceptor. LOL...They even had designs for future designs to shoot down ICBMs!!! (and even low-orbit satellites??? - I'm not sure about this) Granted, a very limited-use interceptor, but it was also not designed with the intention in-mind of dog-fighting. The F-117 is a stealth (fighter/bomber?), and could not dog-fight to save it's life. It couldn't even run from a fight if it wanted. But anyway, PLEASE....no flame wars. I agree, it was definately a HUGE money pit, with MASSIVE cost over-runs. Especially with trying for a new airframe, new engines, new weapons systems, and other new technology. All from scratch. Gutsy, VERY risky; setting up for a BIG fall. Unfortunately, it did not pay off. Hmm, if there is interest, maybe we should start a new thread just for the Arrow, instead of derailing this Vulcan topic any further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Knight Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 All jest aside, you do make several good points and most of them are true. However, it would've been nice to design and actually field some military equipment on our own, since I for one am tired of being the garage sale military country. Here!!!! Here!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Hingtgen Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 (edited) Arrow had to use Sparrow I? OUCH. Has that ever hit an enemy plane, ever? For people wondering, the AIM-7D/E (main Vietnam models) are IMPROVED versions of the original Sparrow III, which had a "much improved" 7% success rate or so compared to older Sparrows. (Which are so out-of-date/bad the Sparrow III has been renamed simply Sparrow, and that's how most of the world knows it--Sparrow I and II are best forgotten) Sparrow I and II are of course really the AIM-7A and AIM-7B, but share almost no parts with the AIM-7C/D/E/F/H/M/P Sparrow III's. (just like the whole aircraft renaming thing like A3J>A-5 and F4H-1>F-4B, missiles were renamed too, so that screwed up the designations/names a bit, but at least missiles came out with much shorter designations) PS--shooting satellites in orbit isn't hard, F-15's can (and have) done so. But they stopped because anti-satellite missiles (even though not ICBM's and not silo nor submarine launched) were considered to be in violation of some treaty... PPS--I'm sure we'd be happy to sell Super Bugs with snowshoes. Edited June 28, 2004 by David Hingtgen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comicbookheros Posted June 28, 2004 Share Posted June 28, 2004 (edited) #3 The worst part of the project.- Cost. The thing was a money pit, and was about to get a lot worse. More so then the Bomark missles and Voodoo fighters that were brought in to replace it at 3 times the cost? The Arrow wasn't perfect by anymeans but it was to be the starting grounds for bigger and better projects, after all it was the first of its kind of course it was going to have flaws. Sorry for starting a sand storm . It is nice to hear that the Vucan is getting a second chance at life. Edited June 28, 2004 by Comicbookheros Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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