Avro CF-105 Arrow,—— an overestimated jetfighter

So much regret for the CF-105 project be cancelled, after many years passed, when you turn around to see, this huge interceptor didn't gain more weapon load, didn't run faster, didn't reach higher altitude, didn't climb rapidly, didn't endure long time or range than F-106.
The large figure would keep fuel cost and maintance cost at high level, but be easier caught by foe's radar and shot down due to less maneuverability in addition.
All of those means RCAF wasted money on a hopeless project, if it wasn't abandont, there was no future for RCAF today.

I think there must be Arrow fans here, come to eat me

reply to post by emile


I'm telling the ATS Canadians you made this thread.

You're aboot to have quite the experience, eh! They'll no doubt be here soon.

Avro?

Lockheed
general dynamics
boeing
bring your checkbook:
One thing we ARE good at its "air superiority".

if we are too pricey try suhkhoi or mig
china is also advancing an "air superiority" fighter aircraft.
though I saw plenty of "tornados"( even got a tornado sticker for my toolbox!) in Prince Saud AB Saudia Arabia during gulf war One. RESPECT!

Given that it's role was not dogfighting but relatively short range bomber defence, manouvreability was pretty much irrelevant.

And it carried about twice the missile load of the 106 AFAIK - 1-4 Genies and 8 Falcons, vs 1 Genie & 4 Falcons??

It's performance was never actually tested to max, so any comparison between the 2 is kind of moot.

and of course it cost less than the XB-70, so somethign about houses of glass, stones, not throwing, people who live in..........

and I'm neither Canadian nor yank

One big issue you miss, emile, is that the US were never willing to sell the F-106 to Canada - as a replacement for the cancelled CF-105, Canada had to make do with the F-101, not an F-102 or F-106 purchase.

So its pointless to compare the two in the hostile way you trying.

Cancellation of the arrow was a very sad day for aviation all round. In my opinion every bit as sad as the day the SR177 was cancelled without the scummy underhandedness attached


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

The Arrows being cut up was not just about the Arrows; it was a key moment for the Canadian military industrial complex itself.

It happened months after the US and Canadian governments signed a joint military-industrial pact, and it was done as a show of force to the Arrow's engineer and maintainance crew to back off and forget about defining an autonomous and strong Canadian air force.

The government gave the crew orders to cut up the arrows, they refused, and then one day they went to work to find the 33 or so Arrows in the production and experimental line all cut to pieces by army mechanics.

We never built a fighter since, to the victory of the US military machine.

I don't think the OP gets the fact that the Arrow was fully Canadian, and top of the line at that. It wasn't about what the Arrow was, it was about what the Arrow promised for future Canadian aviation projects. Truth is it scared the Yanks, and they couldn't handle its existence, especially if it was going to fly over Canadian land FOR Canadians.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Given that it's role was not dogfighting but relatively short range bomber defence, manouvreability was pretty much irrelevant.
And it carried about twice the missile load of the 106 AFAIK - 1-4 Genies and 8 Falcons, vs 1 Genie & 4 Falcons??

As a nuclear warhead a2a missile, the Genies almost is a rubbish, when Falcons loaded, that would be 8 vs 6, not so great than your imagenation.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
The Arrows being cut up was not just about the Arrows; it was a key moment for the Canadian military industrial complex itself.

It happened months after the US and Canadian governments signed a joint military-industrial pact, and it was done as a show of force to the Arrow's engineer and maintainance crew to back off and forget about defining an autonomous and strong Canadian air force.

The government gave the crew orders to cut up the arrows, they refused, and then one day they went to work to find the 33 or so Arrows in the production and experimental line all cut to pieces by army mechanics.

We never built a fighter since, to the victory of the US military machine.

I don't think the OP gets the fact that the Arrow was fully Canadian, and top of the line at that. It wasn't about what the Arrow was, it was about what the Arrow promised for future Canadian aviation projects. Truth is it scared the Yanks, and they couldn't handle its existence, especially if it was going to fly over Canadian land FOR Canadians.

Yeah yeah, it was all a conspiracy, the evil Americans made Canada cancel the CF105 arrow. Just like some Brits want to blame the US too over the TSR2.

Its easier to just blame others, than to look at the reality of the situation. The threat was evolving into being a manned bomber threat, to a primarily ICBM threat. Would the Arrow had any capabilty against those? No.

Neither would have the US F-108, which was cancelled earlier than that too. Who should the US blame for that one?

Uncomfortable as it may be to admit the US did aggressively persue dominance of the aviation industry at the expense of her allies. The Arrow would of posed a threat to this dominance at it was truely unbelievable that it was cancelled for any other reason. To mention the TSR2 is also silly, if it was truely pointless why was the Tornado built given the TSR2 performed the same role.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by biggilo
The Arrow would of posed a threat to this dominance at it was truely unbelievable that it was cancelled for any other reason.

Its truely unbelievable that Canada couldn't actually afford the CF-105 project? If it had gone ahead, it would have put serious strain on the Canadian governments finances...

Prestige projects are sometimes just that - prestige. And some times they just plain run out of money.

To mention the TSR2 is also silly, if it was truely pointless why was the Tornado built given the TSR2 performed the same role.

TSR2 - cancelled in 1965
Panavia Tornado - first flight in 1975

No one is saying that the role the TSR2 performed was superfluous to requirements, but again the British government at the time simply could not afford the project - we were broke, defaulting on debt and begging money off everyone who would lend to us, we couldnt afford a full blown development project, and we certainly couldnt justify one.

The Panavia Tornado was initiated at a later date, in better financial climates and, heres the deal maker, it spread the development cost over several countries.

Oh, and it also gave us an air defence variant - something the TSR2 would never have given us. That was why we joined the Multi Role Combat Aircraft development group in 1968 - the fact that that project ended up giving us the Tornado is neither here nor there.

Originally posted by emile

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Given that it's role was not dogfighting but relatively short range bomber defence, manouvreability was pretty much irrelevant.
And it carried about twice the missile load of the 106 AFAIK - 1-4 Genies and 8 Falcons, vs 1 Genie & 4 Falcons??

As a nuclear warhead a2a missile, the Genies almost is a rubbish, when Falcons loaded, that would be 8 vs 6, not so great than your imagenation.

none-the-less they were the missiles at the time, and your initial post said it didn't "gain more of a missile load" - which it clearly did.

And it's not my imagination - that is why I wrote 1-4 Genies - and not 4 Genies and 8 Falcons. By your math the load was 10 missiles (4 Genies & 6 Falcons, vs 5 - so exactly twice teh missile load.

That seems like a fairly reasonable gain to me.

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by biggilo
The Arrow would of posed a threat to this dominance at it was truely unbelievable that it was cancelled for any other reason.

Its truely unbelievable that Canada couldn't actually afford the CF-105 project? If it had gone ahead, it would have put serious strain on the Canadian governments finances...

Prestige projects are sometimes just that - prestige. And some times they just plain run out of money.

That's the biggest load of BS that's I've heard anyone say about the Arrow project.

Unit cost of the Arrow was between 3.5 and 5 million. Development cost was around $90 mil. On top of this, the engineers put the Arrow design from scratch into prototype phases in a matter of months.

"Prestige project"? Yeah, I guess it must be easy for it to be labelled as such in half a century of hindsight, eh? To the engineers it was Canada's next generation fighter.

firepilot-
Yeah yeah, it was all a conspiracy, the evil Americans made Canada cancel the CF105 arrow. Just like some Brits want to blame the US too over the TSR2.

Its easier to just blame others, than to look at the reality of the situation. The threat was evolving into being a manned bomber threat, to a primarily ICBM threat. Would the Arrow had any capabilty against those? No.

Neither would have the US F-108, which was cancelled earlier than that too. Who should the US blame for that one?

Yeah, damn right it was a conspiracy. Read "The Fight For Canada" by David Orchard and maybe you'll learn something about how Canadian politicians manipulated by Washington after WWII really screwed up our autonomous military and its projects, starting with our merchant navy (which was the largest navy in the world after WWII until there was a crack down on merchant unions by corrupt officials).

And guess what? The switch from strategic bombers to ICBMs was one of the excuses laid out by the government for the Arrow cancellation. Interestingly enough, we formed NORAD with the Americans for the interception of Soviet bombers and then bought American fighters for interception roles. WE STILL require fighters for interception roles! Now we plan to replace our CF-18s with CF-35s, planes that obviously do not fit the long-range all-weather interceptor role that we require. Why? Because our military complex relies on American weapons now, as planned since the 50s joint-military industrial pact (which was nothing more than a "investor's rights" agreement meant to protect larger American corporations planning to overtake our own industry, much like the FTA/NAFTA).

We were TOLD by American NORAD leadership to buy F-35s. Why? They said American craft will take over OUR OWN interceptor missions on OUR OWN land while WE provide BACKUP with less-capable F-35s! Why do you think there is so much damn controversy about the F-35s in this country? Because it's all BS

I WILL SAY IT AGAIN-

The cancellation of the Arrow project was the end to autonomous Canadian military aviation development. Ever since, we've bought American fighters and retrofitted them with some modifications, but that's it. We could've been designing and selling cutting-edge aircraft while expanding our own military capability for the last 50 years. Instead we are the 15th largest arms dealers in the world because we provide munitions to NATO countries involved in imperialist wars.

We are now nothing more than specialized support for other country's forces. The path that our leaders have designed for us is both pathetic and embarrasing. I guarentee that when I get in power, we're going to start development of new, advanced and innovative weapons as well as starting up our own space industry independent of that bastard agency NASA. Go Canada!

If we had built them, we might still be using them to this day. That's what I think.

They were built to do a job and with upgrades of modern technology they could have done it for decades.

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Its truely unbelievable that Canada couldn't actually afford the CF-105 project? If it had gone ahead, it would have put serious strain on the Canadian governments finances...

Prestige projects are sometimes just that - prestige. And some times they just plain run out of money.

The Arrow, refitted with the Bristol Olympus engine, was also a preferred contender to the RAF's F.153D requirement, along with the Fairey Delta III, UK participation would have greatly mitigated any undue costs faced by Canada on this project, ultimately the Arrow was another victim of the 1957 Defence White Paper which resulted in the UK formally ending it's interest in the Programme. Many of the senior design and technical staff on the Arrow had transferred from the UK parent company and had worked on the Avro Vulcan and 707's development and were very experienced on tailless deltas. Similarly the chief test pilot had transferred from Gloster and had completed the testing of the Javelin.

TSR2 - cancelled in 1965
Panavia Tornado - first flight in 1975

No one is saying that the role the TSR2 performed was superfluous to requirements, but again the British government at the time simply could not afford the project - we were broke, defaulting on debt and begging money off everyone who would lend to us, we couldnt afford a full blown development project, and we certainly couldnt justify one.

This is disingenuous as the vast bulk of costs on TSR 2 were already spent and we ended up paying out far more in cancellation cost for the the TSR 2 and F-111 plus MRCA development than continuation of the TSR 2 would have cost, resulting in a more capable aircraft than both of it's successors.

The Panavia Tornado was initiated at a later date, in better financial climates and, heres the deal maker, it spread the development cost over several countries.

But it was still related to TSR 2 and some elements of it's design originated with that programme. In making Tornado smaller and lighter to appeal to our partners the RAF was forced to accept a much less capable aircraft into service in 1982 than they would have had at least a decade earlier.

Oh, and it also gave us an air defence variant - something the TSR2 would never have given us. That was why we joined the Multi Role Combat Aircraft development group in 1968 - the fact that that project ended up giving us the Tornado is neither here nor there.

Not really true in either case, we didn't join MRCA so much as they joined us. The design of the Tornado was created as the UKVG after the withdrawal of Dassault from AFVG, and there was indeed an air defence variant of the TSR 2 designed by BAC, if I can locate the drawings I will post one.

Here's a blog article with some info in an ADV for the TSR 2 - TSR 2 research group - basically saying they can't find any real evidence of one.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
That's the biggest load of BS that's I've heard anyone say about the Arrow project.

Unit cost of the Arrow was between 3.5 and 5 million. Development cost was around $90 mil. On top of this, the engineers put the Arrow design from scratch into prototype phases in a matter of months.

FYI thats about $37 million in todays costs adjusted for inflation and figure about 600 million for development. Those figures are based an alot of assumptions it seems

also

With the majority in the government, Prime Minister Diefenbaker and his cabinet went about reviewing all government expenditures looking for cost cutting measures to implement their plans for new programs. Some of the new programs were nothing more than basic social justice items, whereas others had intrinsic merit. The CF-105 Arrow program was one of the programs under review in part due to the raising cost of production and the government's commitment to NORAD. Originally, under the Liberals; the Arrow program was estimate at $100 million, but that figure was a gross miscalculation, because by 1957-58 the program cost $235 million and required another $100 million in fiscal year 1958-59.novaonline.nvcc.edu...

Seems more like 335 million and counting.

Tried to find Canukistans defence budget for 1958 but no luck anybody????? Bueller?

reply to post by FredT


Still sounds reasonable to me. F-35s will cost around 30 billion including maintenance contracts, hence why Harper's government refused to disclose these costs to parliament.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
reply to post by FredT

 

Still sounds reasonable to me. F-35s will cost around 30 billion including maintenance contracts, hence why Harper's government refused to disclose these costs to parliament.

Yes, but we are talking about a much different time. IMHO We are also talking about a bare bones interceptor versus a 3 variant stealthy strike fighter.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
reply to post by FredT

 

Still sounds reasonable to me. F-35s will cost around 30 billion including maintenance contracts, hence why Harper's government refused to disclose these costs to parliament.

Yes, but we are talking about a much different time. IMHO We are also talking about a bare bones interceptor versus a 3 variant stealthy strike fighter.