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This topic is for discussion of the potential of the ill-fated Avro Arrow. Was it a white elephant, or was it a technological marvel that was cut short?
For those who may not be aware, here is the history of the Arrow.
Avro (A.V. Roe) was a Canadian-based aircraft manufacturer in Malton, Ontario. It built the Lancaster bomber during the Second World War, flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force during that war. Just before the Korean War broke out, Avro developed a jetliner, the first in North America, that flew just weeks after the British-built Comet.
Several US airlines placed orders for the Avro jetliner, but the orders could never be filled. The government ordered Avro to concentrate on fighter craft for the war in Korea, and the CF-100 went into production. There was no production space available for jetliners. The only jetliner was flown by Trans Canada Airlines (TCA, now known as Air Canada) for a few years, then scrapped. Douglas eventually became TCA's prime jetliner supplier.
In the early 1950s, Avro tried the CF-101, in an attempt to build a supersonic jet fighter, but the project was dropped as it did not produce spectacular results.
About this time, Soviet bombers were becoming a threat, capable of flying right over the pole from air bases all across the Russian Federation. In April 1953, the chiefs of staff wrote up their requirements for a new interceptor craft.
It had to be capable of more than Mach 1.5, a radius of action of 1000 km and a ferry range of no less than 6000 nautical miles, with a sophisticated fire control system and an all-missile armament, with at least 600 to be built. It had to be capable of making a turn at Mach 1.5 without losing speed or altitude. It had to have the performance of a Cessna two-seater.
Boeing, Lockheed and Hawker-Siddley said it couldn't be done. About that time, C.D. Howe, the so-called "minister of everything" in the government of Louis St. Laurent, hired his old associate Crawford Gordon to become the new president of Avro. Gordon had done much work for Howe during the Second World War, spending what it took to get war production done.
The military presented their requirements to Gordon and Gordon took it to his key people in design. They looked at it and said, with the current state of materials and such, it was impossible. But, if the dramatic portrayal has any grain of truth, the seed was planted in Jim Chamberlin, who later helped run the Mercury project for NASA, designed the Gemini spacecraft. Jim came up with the delta design, dispensing with the tail. By morning, the key people had a concept for Gordon, who called in the military to see the proposal.
C.D. Howe allotted $100 million for development of the aircraft. The company chose Rolls Royce RB106 engines to deliver 20,000 pounds of thrust. Models were built and launched over Lake Ontario, but they lost stability past Mach 1.7. The model was taken to a wind tunnel at a US base where they diagnosed the problem.
The first prototype of the modified wings flew successfully over Lake Ontario. Production of the first aircraft began, going straight to production instead of building a full-size flying prototype of the CF-105, the Avro Arrow.
About then, Rolls Royce abandoned development of the new engines. Avro had to start an engine development program of its own, however late. The new engines were named the Iroquois. Gordon had to get another $100 million from C.D. Howe, who questioned Gordon buying up all kinds of smaller companies, including Canadian Car which had manufactured city buses, in order to meet his supply demands for building Arrows.
The Canadian election of June 1957 kicked out the Louis St. Laurent government, resulting in the new government of prairie populist John G. Diefenbaker, who was more concerned with Canadians' social needs. Although C.D. Howe may have warned Crawford Gordon that the new government had men with small minds, the truth is that C.D. Howe, if St. Laurent was still in office, might have had to cancel the Arrow himself within a year of the election.
The Diefenbaker government was more cautious on funding the Arrow.
The first Arrow was rolled out on October 4, 1957, and later that day, the world heard about Sputnik. Suddenly, the need for the craft seemed to be in question, and Gordon ordered Pratt & Whitney engines so that Arrow could at least prove itself capable of flying and matching the world speed record of Mach 1.2.
Forces in the government were starting to gather against the Arrow. The Bomarc missiles were seen as the key to stopping a Soviet missile threat, although Arrow supporters pointed out that a Bomarc missile could shoot down a jetliner, a man in an interceptor could react to the discovery of a populated civilian aircraft. Canada could afford Bomarcs better than Arrows, certainly not both.
Polish pilot Jan Zurakowski flew the Arrow the first time, with Arrow workers dropping their tools to go out and watch the flight and landing. The Arrow performed almost flawlessly, with Z saying he had fewer problems than with similar supersonic designs.
After several test flights, RCAF Lt. Jack Woodman got his chance to take up the Arrow. The onboard computer was used to fly the craft on automatic to Kingston and back. Legend says Gordon did not want the P&W engines used to break the world record of Mach 1.2, because he wanted the new Iroquois engines to be sellable everywhere in the world. Legend further says that test pilot Woodman flew to Mach 1.9 but off the record at Gordon's insistence.
The first five Arrows had Pratt & Whitney engines. The sixth and all since were to have Iroquois engines. The P&W engines had a thrust of 12,500 lb dry, 18,500 lb wet. The Iroquois engine would deliver 19,250 lb dry and 26,000 lb wet. (I am not an aviation techno type so I don't know what dry and wet mean.)
Politics was moving against the Arrow. The government canceled the Sparrow missile development program. They told lies about the aircraft, supposedly "off the record", about fuel boiling in the tanks, and that the aircraft would tear itself apart if it opened its bomb bay doors at supersonic speed. (The "bay doors" were not designed to be opened in flight. The bay doors were opened on the ground to install interchangeable modules, either for reconnaissance equipment, or for weapons systems or such, and closed for flight. It was an ingenious way to make the aircraft versatile. A wing of Arrows could have some reconnaissance craft among others with weapons systems.)
The government said it would decide on Arrow's fate in March 1959. In early February, the Iroquois engines were installed and ready in Arrow RL-206.
On Black Friday, February 20, 1959, with RL-206 ready to try out the Iroquois engines and break the world speed record, the government canceled the program. Not long after, they ordered all the aircraft cut to scrap metal, and the destruction of all design information and computer files and all models and film footage. (A nonsense shot in the TV Miniseries shows Jim Chamberlin's lunar module mockup being put into a box for disposal. The mockup looks exactly like the finished product used in Project Apollo, which is not possible since Grumman didn't design the lunar module with triangle windows until at least 1965, and it took years to perfect the design through the late 1960s.)
Reporter June Callwood chartered a plane to fly over Avro's restricted airspace so that she could take pictures of the aircraft as they lay in pieces.
Legend is that one Arrow got away. June Callwood and others insist they heard the Iroquois engines one more time after the scrapping of the aircraft. There is no solid proof of this, however. One Internet website suggests that it was stolen and flown to the Soviet Union, where its breakthroughs were copied for Soviet fighter craft.
The 1997 movie starring Dan Aykroyd takes the legend of a surviving Arrow as this: Woodman stopped the salvage crews from cutting up RL-206 because it was full of aviation fuel. A crew would have to be brought in to empty it. Woodman, Chamberlin and others hatch the scheme to steal it away to preserve it, and the next morning, in the wee hours, Woodman and Chamberlin take off in RL-206, with secret orders given by the military chief. They break the world speed record, execute a turn at Mach 1.5 without losing speed or altitude, and fly straight up to the edge of space before giving the Prime Minister a rumble by flying over Ottawa at supersonic speed, then flying off into the unknown. The problem with this is that Woodman and Chamberlin would have to park somewhere and find their way back from a place that would have to be so isolated, otherwise the Arrow would have been found by now or it would have been flown elsewhere by someone else.
What I would like comment on is this:
If the RL-206 had made its flight before the government canceled the program, could the Arrow have served at least a limited function in the RCAF? 600 aircraft does seem ambitious in a field with diverse threat potentials: ICBMs, long-range bombers, long-range fighter-interceptors, submarine-based missiles.
In late 1960, Diefenbaker admitted in confidence that they may have made a serious error by canceling the Arrow. This only came out in the 1990s after the 30-year lockup of Privy Council documents. The Bomarcs turned out to be a failure around 1960, and Canada ended up buying some 60 Voodoo aircraft that were barely capable of Mach 1, for the same cost as 120 Arrows that could fly at Mach 2 or more.
Should the Arrow perhaps have been allowed to complete and give forth a result for all the money put into it, then slow the program down and let technology shake down, new computers be developed, new needs be defined, then fit the Arrow design into it?
I remain convinced that the Arrow was a success that never had the chance to show what its engineers had proven they could do. The designers were brilliant people, contributing to the Concorde and various American craft including the Gemini, Apollo and orbiter spacecraft. A fleet of 50-100 Arrows could have contributed to a deterrent, as well as paved the way for more efficient, more advanced designs to follow in the 1960s, and been the basis of a cooperative US-Canada aircraft endeavour in the 1970s and 1980s.
What do y'all think? Better off with or without the Arrow in the 1960s RCAF?
GCapp
For those who may not be aware, here is the history of the Arrow.
Avro (A.V. Roe) was a Canadian-based aircraft manufacturer in Malton, Ontario. It built the Lancaster bomber during the Second World War, flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force during that war. Just before the Korean War broke out, Avro developed a jetliner, the first in North America, that flew just weeks after the British-built Comet.
Several US airlines placed orders for the Avro jetliner, but the orders could never be filled. The government ordered Avro to concentrate on fighter craft for the war in Korea, and the CF-100 went into production. There was no production space available for jetliners. The only jetliner was flown by Trans Canada Airlines (TCA, now known as Air Canada) for a few years, then scrapped. Douglas eventually became TCA's prime jetliner supplier.
In the early 1950s, Avro tried the CF-101, in an attempt to build a supersonic jet fighter, but the project was dropped as it did not produce spectacular results.
About this time, Soviet bombers were becoming a threat, capable of flying right over the pole from air bases all across the Russian Federation. In April 1953, the chiefs of staff wrote up their requirements for a new interceptor craft.
It had to be capable of more than Mach 1.5, a radius of action of 1000 km and a ferry range of no less than 6000 nautical miles, with a sophisticated fire control system and an all-missile armament, with at least 600 to be built. It had to be capable of making a turn at Mach 1.5 without losing speed or altitude. It had to have the performance of a Cessna two-seater.
Boeing, Lockheed and Hawker-Siddley said it couldn't be done. About that time, C.D. Howe, the so-called "minister of everything" in the government of Louis St. Laurent, hired his old associate Crawford Gordon to become the new president of Avro. Gordon had done much work for Howe during the Second World War, spending what it took to get war production done.
The military presented their requirements to Gordon and Gordon took it to his key people in design. They looked at it and said, with the current state of materials and such, it was impossible. But, if the dramatic portrayal has any grain of truth, the seed was planted in Jim Chamberlin, who later helped run the Mercury project for NASA, designed the Gemini spacecraft. Jim came up with the delta design, dispensing with the tail. By morning, the key people had a concept for Gordon, who called in the military to see the proposal.
C.D. Howe allotted $100 million for development of the aircraft. The company chose Rolls Royce RB106 engines to deliver 20,000 pounds of thrust. Models were built and launched over Lake Ontario, but they lost stability past Mach 1.7. The model was taken to a wind tunnel at a US base where they diagnosed the problem.
The first prototype of the modified wings flew successfully over Lake Ontario. Production of the first aircraft began, going straight to production instead of building a full-size flying prototype of the CF-105, the Avro Arrow.
About then, Rolls Royce abandoned development of the new engines. Avro had to start an engine development program of its own, however late. The new engines were named the Iroquois. Gordon had to get another $100 million from C.D. Howe, who questioned Gordon buying up all kinds of smaller companies, including Canadian Car which had manufactured city buses, in order to meet his supply demands for building Arrows.
The Canadian election of June 1957 kicked out the Louis St. Laurent government, resulting in the new government of prairie populist John G. Diefenbaker, who was more concerned with Canadians' social needs. Although C.D. Howe may have warned Crawford Gordon that the new government had men with small minds, the truth is that C.D. Howe, if St. Laurent was still in office, might have had to cancel the Arrow himself within a year of the election.
The Diefenbaker government was more cautious on funding the Arrow.
The first Arrow was rolled out on October 4, 1957, and later that day, the world heard about Sputnik. Suddenly, the need for the craft seemed to be in question, and Gordon ordered Pratt & Whitney engines so that Arrow could at least prove itself capable of flying and matching the world speed record of Mach 1.2.
Forces in the government were starting to gather against the Arrow. The Bomarc missiles were seen as the key to stopping a Soviet missile threat, although Arrow supporters pointed out that a Bomarc missile could shoot down a jetliner, a man in an interceptor could react to the discovery of a populated civilian aircraft. Canada could afford Bomarcs better than Arrows, certainly not both.
Polish pilot Jan Zurakowski flew the Arrow the first time, with Arrow workers dropping their tools to go out and watch the flight and landing. The Arrow performed almost flawlessly, with Z saying he had fewer problems than with similar supersonic designs.
After several test flights, RCAF Lt. Jack Woodman got his chance to take up the Arrow. The onboard computer was used to fly the craft on automatic to Kingston and back. Legend says Gordon did not want the P&W engines used to break the world record of Mach 1.2, because he wanted the new Iroquois engines to be sellable everywhere in the world. Legend further says that test pilot Woodman flew to Mach 1.9 but off the record at Gordon's insistence.
The first five Arrows had Pratt & Whitney engines. The sixth and all since were to have Iroquois engines. The P&W engines had a thrust of 12,500 lb dry, 18,500 lb wet. The Iroquois engine would deliver 19,250 lb dry and 26,000 lb wet. (I am not an aviation techno type so I don't know what dry and wet mean.)
Politics was moving against the Arrow. The government canceled the Sparrow missile development program. They told lies about the aircraft, supposedly "off the record", about fuel boiling in the tanks, and that the aircraft would tear itself apart if it opened its bomb bay doors at supersonic speed. (The "bay doors" were not designed to be opened in flight. The bay doors were opened on the ground to install interchangeable modules, either for reconnaissance equipment, or for weapons systems or such, and closed for flight. It was an ingenious way to make the aircraft versatile. A wing of Arrows could have some reconnaissance craft among others with weapons systems.)
The government said it would decide on Arrow's fate in March 1959. In early February, the Iroquois engines were installed and ready in Arrow RL-206.
On Black Friday, February 20, 1959, with RL-206 ready to try out the Iroquois engines and break the world speed record, the government canceled the program. Not long after, they ordered all the aircraft cut to scrap metal, and the destruction of all design information and computer files and all models and film footage. (A nonsense shot in the TV Miniseries shows Jim Chamberlin's lunar module mockup being put into a box for disposal. The mockup looks exactly like the finished product used in Project Apollo, which is not possible since Grumman didn't design the lunar module with triangle windows until at least 1965, and it took years to perfect the design through the late 1960s.)
Reporter June Callwood chartered a plane to fly over Avro's restricted airspace so that she could take pictures of the aircraft as they lay in pieces.
Legend is that one Arrow got away. June Callwood and others insist they heard the Iroquois engines one more time after the scrapping of the aircraft. There is no solid proof of this, however. One Internet website suggests that it was stolen and flown to the Soviet Union, where its breakthroughs were copied for Soviet fighter craft.
The 1997 movie starring Dan Aykroyd takes the legend of a surviving Arrow as this: Woodman stopped the salvage crews from cutting up RL-206 because it was full of aviation fuel. A crew would have to be brought in to empty it. Woodman, Chamberlin and others hatch the scheme to steal it away to preserve it, and the next morning, in the wee hours, Woodman and Chamberlin take off in RL-206, with secret orders given by the military chief. They break the world speed record, execute a turn at Mach 1.5 without losing speed or altitude, and fly straight up to the edge of space before giving the Prime Minister a rumble by flying over Ottawa at supersonic speed, then flying off into the unknown. The problem with this is that Woodman and Chamberlin would have to park somewhere and find their way back from a place that would have to be so isolated, otherwise the Arrow would have been found by now or it would have been flown elsewhere by someone else.
What I would like comment on is this:
If the RL-206 had made its flight before the government canceled the program, could the Arrow have served at least a limited function in the RCAF? 600 aircraft does seem ambitious in a field with diverse threat potentials: ICBMs, long-range bombers, long-range fighter-interceptors, submarine-based missiles.
In late 1960, Diefenbaker admitted in confidence that they may have made a serious error by canceling the Arrow. This only came out in the 1990s after the 30-year lockup of Privy Council documents. The Bomarcs turned out to be a failure around 1960, and Canada ended up buying some 60 Voodoo aircraft that were barely capable of Mach 1, for the same cost as 120 Arrows that could fly at Mach 2 or more.
Should the Arrow perhaps have been allowed to complete and give forth a result for all the money put into it, then slow the program down and let technology shake down, new computers be developed, new needs be defined, then fit the Arrow design into it?
I remain convinced that the Arrow was a success that never had the chance to show what its engineers had proven they could do. The designers were brilliant people, contributing to the Concorde and various American craft including the Gemini, Apollo and orbiter spacecraft. A fleet of 50-100 Arrows could have contributed to a deterrent, as well as paved the way for more efficient, more advanced designs to follow in the 1960s, and been the basis of a cooperative US-Canada aircraft endeavour in the 1970s and 1980s.
What do y'all think? Better off with or without the Arrow in the 1960s RCAF?
GCapp
