Avro CF-105 Arrow,—— an overestimated jetfighter

Originally posted by MurrayB
reply to post by MurrayB

 

The Arrow's original design was done without knowledge of the area rule but it was altered after NACA told them about it. It is clear from the Arrow Mk. 1 brochure that the rule was only applied to the nose, engine inlets and tail but not to the waist. This means the Arrow had higher drag than other aircraft like the F-106 and this means it was slower with about 2/3 the range.

the sections that were altered to better fit hte area rule are highlighted in this article by Avro's vice President, engineering - originally published in 1958 - www.avroarrow.org...

He states that area rule considerations were incorporated quite early on, and then improved with model testing.

A great deal of theoretical work was done on the application of Area Rule to the CF-105 and during the early design stages certain changes were incorporated in the aircraft to take advantage of the results of our area rule work.
Eleven plastic models were made at 1/30th scale and cuts were taken on these to represent various Mach numbers. The cuts were then checked on a planimeter, the results fed into a digital computer, and plots were made around the aircraft at 0deg., 45deg., 90deg., 135deg. and 180deg.. Most of the results were obtained around a Mach number of 1.5 and, as a result of this extensive investigation, we sharpened the radar nose, thinned down the intake lips, reduced the cross-section area of the fuselage below the canopy, and added an extension fairing at the rear, to smooth out the bumps in the area rule curve (Fig. 6).

Originally posted by Aloysius the GaulHe states that area rule considerations were incorporated quite early on, and then improved with model testing.

Thank you for confirming that the rule was not applied to the waist area but it is obvious from the photographs that the fuselage was the wrong shape for a Mach 2+ aircraft. That explains why the maximum continuous speed rating was Mach 1.9 and the extimated range for the Arrow Mk. 2 was only 1254 nm. The Arrow, like the Bristol 188, could dash to Mach 2 for a short time but the B-58, which was already in service at the time, could exceed Mach 2 for more than an hour. The Starfighter, Delta Dart, Thunderchief, and English Electric Lightning were all faster and less expensive than the Arrow was.

The Arrow's limited range was one of the reasons the Canadian military recommended cancelling the Arrow program. It is also the primary reason the U.S. gave for declining to purchase the aircraft.

Of course even if Arrow's shape followed the area rule to a greater degree there was still the problem of its very high price. The U.S. Government could still have purchased two and a half Delta Darts for the cost of one Arrow. The cost is the most likely reason that the Liberals decided to cancel the program in 1957.

Originally posted by waynos
reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

 

Um at the beginning of your post condescendingly suggests a stating of the obvious is about to follow, and you are so completely wide of the mark on this it is I who ought be condescending to you, however I will resist.

No reason other than the USA was footing most of the bill for it. Like I said, when (if) this funding dries up the programme dies, don't delude yourself that 60 for Canada and 48 for Holland etc will in any way make up for the loss of four figure orders from the US services.

No, I wasn't trying to be condescending but thanks for the assumption

I said that the F-35 will still be exported because that's what I read at the time when this was a big deal. Why? Because it appears that the US government is planning on cancelling funding for one of the three F-35 variables (the two engine variant, whatever letter designation that is).

But you know what? I'm just going to give you this argument. I hope the F-35 program falls through and the US government has done nothing but waste money. This means that we won't be arming our own airforce primarily with F-35s, which I see as a victory.

reply to post by MurrayB


I'll admit i didnt read the all of the preceeding posts, so if some one already mentioned this excuse me, but the real reason the arrow project was cancelled, was that the KGB had infiltrated the Avro company many levels from floor workers to engineering.
At the time Avro was the premier titanium processor in the world, more advanced than anything the US or the soviets were doing at the time.
When proprietary Avro Ti processing techniques started to show up in in soviet military plants the only place they could have come from was Avro.
The whole political cancellation thing was just a smokescreen to throw the soviet intel angencies off of the fact that the us was monitoring a great deal of their secure communications.
And a few of the cutting edge engineering advances that were made in the arrow program show up a few years later incorporated into the Mig 25 foxbat.
Avro was so compramised that it was easier to "scrap" the program and "sell" it to the us, than it would have been to remove the spies from the company, which would have tipped the soviets off.

reply to post by MurrayB


The area rule is applied everywhere - I think you are confusing 1 particular shape of a fuselage for the rule - the "wasp waist" is NOT the only fuselage shape that can be used when an aircraft is "area ruled".

The sole requirement of the area rule is that the cross section of the total airframe (including any external stores) changes as smoothly as possible - it does not matter whethe thesse changes are in the fuselage, the wing, or any odd bumps and lumps that might be incorporated to achieve it.

there's a good article on how area rules can be applied without a wasp waist at www.aerospaceweb.org...

If the Arrow was not area ruled is probably wouldn't even have gotten to Mach 1.5!

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


No, I wasn't trying to be condescending but thanks for the assumption :

if you don't mean it, don't write it. Reading is not assumption, "um" is something I would expect from a 12 year old girl. Literacy in the English language is a "good thing" and helps conversation enormously. Out of interest, what was the purpose of beginning with um?

I said that the F-35 will still be exported because that's what I read at the time when this was a big deal. Why? Because it appears that the US government is planning on cancelling funding for one of the three F-35 variables (the two engine variant, whatever letter designation that is).

Ok, but read it where? Nowhere official would be my bet. Also there is no twin engine version of the F-35. I presume you mean the F-35B STOVL version? The lift fan in that model is powered by the existing, single engine.

But you know what? I'm just going to give you this argument. I hope the F-35 program falls through and the US government has done nothing but waste money. This means that we won't be arming our own airforce primarily with F-35s, which I see as a victory.

Youre not 'giving' me anything, i am trying to help you deny ignorance here. Victory for who? I am on the opposite side of the fence from you. Maybe because the RAF only requires the aircraft to be a relatively stealthy bomb truck, rather than a fighter. Which I think it will prove rather good at, in a similar way to how the Hawker Typhoon was a poor fighter, but an excellent ground attack aircraft.

Originally posted by waynos

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


No, I wasn't trying to be condescending but thanks for the assumption :

if you don't mean it, don't write it. Reading is not assumption, "um" is something I would expect from a 12 year old girl. Literacy in the English language is a "good thing" and helps conversation enormously. Out of interest, what was the purpose of beginning with um?

I don't recall posting that "um" comment to you, so what is your problem with it? I think somebody bickering about the linguistics of another person is akin to the maturity of a 12 year old. Are we on even terms now?

Ok, but read it where? Nowhere official would be my bet. Also there is no twin engine version of the F-35. I presume you mean the F-35B STOVL version? The lift fan in that model is powered by the existing, single engine.

I read it right on ATS, but obviously not among your posts or we wouldn't be at this juncture.

And personally I don't think any country would be recieving F-35s if the US doesn't. Doesn't matter if other countries invested in it, because if the US can't have it then nobody else can.

And yes, the F-35B is what I meant by twin engine version. I misread an article that claimed it was a twin engine when the VTOL engine is the same as the conventional one with diverted thrust.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

I don't recall posting that "um" comment to you, so what is your problem with it? I think somebody bickering about the linguistics of another person is akin to the maturity of a 12 year old. Are we on even terms now?

I find your position strange. Firstly, you don't need to recall it, you can see it. Secondly, where I am from, it is akin to starting with the comment "listen stupid" which is why I asked you the context in which you meant it, but you haven't replied. Does this mean that was your position and are now backtracking? Turning a minor query into a major argument is certainly not my intention, but you are being evasive. Finally, even terms? Not even close Dimitri. I think well leave that there as there is nothing more to be gained from carrying on.

Back on topic, Your personal view would seem to be the correct one in that nobody will get any F-35's if the USA itself doesn't buy any, so why were you the one postulating that production might carry on for export customers only? That's what prompted my first reply to you. Whoever posted, or thinks, that is indulging themselves in wishful thinking, nothing more.

Also, the Arrow was very far from being the Turkey that Murray seems to think. The charges placed about it's recorded speed and the fact that it set no records are grossly unfair, given that it was only a prototype and one that had it's development curtailed at that. I would also support Aloysius on the point of area rule. The Arrow used a much more advanced application of area rule that moved beyond the 'coke bottle' effect and is more in line with later designs from the sixties and seventies in this respect. The Arrow was a more advanced design than the Lightning (the worlds fastest AND most manoeuvrable interceptor for several years and with no area rule in it's design at all) and the Arrow promised greater range and weapon load than the Lightning (of which I am a huge fan). It was not axed by the UK in favour of the Lightning at all, but because of the withdrawal of requirement F.153D following the disastrous Defence White Paper that said manned aircraft were no longer required.

Originally posted by waynos
I find your position strange. Firstly, you don't need to recall it, you can see it. Secondly, where I am from, it is akin to starting with the comment "listen stupid" which is why I asked you the context in which you meant it, but you haven't replied. Does this mean that was your position and are now backtracking? Turning a minor query into a major argument is certainly not my intention, but you are being evasive. Finally, even terms? Not even close Dimitri. I think well leave that there as there is nothing more to be gained from carrying on.

I meant "um" as in, I think there's more to the issue that needs to be addressed. Where I come from, people use "um" all the time in order just to start making their point. I guess it is kind of redundant to use in written text since the time constraints that exist in oral speech (necessary to make an effective point) do not really exist in text.

Back on topic, Your personal view would seem to be the correct one in that nobody will get any F-35's if the USA itself doesn't buy any, so why were you the one postulating that production might carry on for export customers only? That's what prompted my first reply to you. Whoever posted, or thinks, that is indulging themselves in wishful thinking, nothing more.

Again, I have different views on this because there are different ways of looking at it.

From a political/strategic standpoint, the US would not allow other countries to possess weapons developed by American companies if the US military was not deploying such technology itself, especially in the case of 5th generation stealth fighters.

From an economic standpoint, selling the F-35 as an export fighter would still help make up for the high development costs. If I recall correctly, the F-35 programme is the most expensive official military project in the world, right? It just doesn't make sense, from an economic standpoint, to cut off all planned exports.

Even thinking strategically here, these F-35 exports are going to Israel and other NATO allies (Canada, Norway, UK?) where they plan to deploy the F-35 as their mainline fighter. If they just cut these plans, then this would mean that these allies have to turn towards competitor aircraft.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
The area rule is applied everywhere - I think you are confusing 1 particular shape of a fuselage for the rule - the "wasp waist" is NOT the only fuselage shape that can be used when an aircraft is "area ruled".

The sole requirement of the area rule is that the cross section of the total airframe (including any external stores) changes as smoothly as possible - it does not matter whethe thesse changes are in the fuselage, the wing, or any odd bumps and lumps that might be incorporated to achieve it.

there's a good article on how area rules can be applied without a wasp waist at www.aerospaceweb.org...

If the Arrow was not area ruled is probably wouldn't even have gotten to Mach 1.5!

Since I am a retired educator my knowledge of the area rule comes from books and I do not like online sources because they are often incorrect and some change every day.

The area rule was a discovery of a fellow called Whitcomb at NACA that it was necessary to consider the cross sectional area of the wings and other protrusions when trying to make the aircraft conform to the shape of a stretched-out American football. The rule is generally applied to a greater or lesser degree and from nose to tail. No aircraft I know of follows the rule 100% and the example given shows that the F-102 did not completely conform to the rule either.

A wasp waist is one solution to the problem for a particular wing shape. The Starfighter was area ruled to a large extent but it did not have a wasp waist but then it wasn't a "delta" either. The Arrow was also area ruled to a degree but the Delta Dart's shape followed the rule to a greater exent which gave less drag. Several other faster aircraft also followed the area rule to a greater degree than the Arrow did.

The site you mentioned does illustrate how the F-102A conforms to the desired shape to a greater degree than the YF-102A. Avro did not apply the rule at the waist and that part of the aircraft still had too much drag. The Arrow was built and tested with dummy weights in place of unfinished subsytems. The maximum continous operating speed is recorded as Mach 1.9 but the aircraft could "dash" to Mach 2.0 and possibly beyond. Since the maximum speed was determined by skin temperature it would have been the same for the Mk.2 but different for the Mk. 3. Orenda was planning to optimize the Iroquois for Mach 1.5 to try and increase range so the later Arrows would have been slower than the first ones.

Even though the Arrow was not the fastest aircraft at the time it was still fast enough to meet the specification which was a maximum continuous speed of Mach 1.5. It was the 1254 nm ferry range that did not meet the specification and the RCAF had advised Avro that the range was "not acceptable".

Originally posted by waynos
Also, the Arrow was very far from being the Turkey that Murray seems to think.

It is not just what I think. Aerospace Engineering Professor Julius Lukasiewicz who was familiar with the Arrow described it by saying, “It wasn’t an exceptionally wonderful plane. It was a big plane but it was essentially a plane that could have been built and...designed and built, on the basis of data available at that time and many aircraft were like this. There was nothing extraordinary about it.”

A video containing his words is posted at www.youtube.com...

Records show that the Americans cited the short range as a reason for not buying the Arrow but, so far, I have been unable to discover why the U.K. declined to buy it. Perhaps we can discover the U.K.'s reason by comparing notes.

Now, are you saying the U.K. bought no interceptors because of the white paper or that that they had other interceptors?

What I think is really unfair is that Canadian governments over the years have spent millions of our tax dollars teaching young people that President Eisenhower murdered our unicorn when we never even had a bleeding unicorn. What we actually had was an overestimated, overpriced, giant, flying, white, "Turkey".

reply to post by MurrayB


Murray, I don't see how that quote is critical of the Arrow? It seems a perfectly sensible assessment to me. Not being mythologically super advanced does not equate to being poor, surely?
I have not been able to view the video as I am away from home and my mobile network does not allow streaming (cheapskates!)

When I am home again I will seek out my sources for the precise reason the Arrow was rejected, whether it was defeated in the assessment or whether it was the fallout from the White Paper. Like yourself I rely on books (high quality and authoritative ones) for my factual info.

What the uk did though was to decide that all manned fighter aircraft were obsolete and the requirement that the Arrow was up for was withdrawn anyway, as were several others, and even the Lightning only survived to service because it was said to have proceeded too far to cancel (strange that this did not also apply to the TSR 2 seven years later when it had proceeded much further). The net result was that we continued with the Lightning and the subsonic (!) Gloster Javelin and after realising our folly ordered the F-4 Phantom in 1966.

Even that wasn't the end of it though as from 1969 to 1975 we used our Phantoms mainly as strike aircraft to cover for the fact that we had cancelled TSR 2, leaving the ancient Canberra in service. Though there were two squadrons on QRA in Scotland. In 1968 the Javelin was pensioned off (a supersonic Super-Javelin had been another victim of cuts leading to the closure of Gloster). This meant that the main force of Phantoms only switched to air defence after 1976 and the Lightning stayed in service until 1988 when we replaced the lot with a converted bomber (Tornado F.3)

It's a story I will never tire of

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


Fair enough Dimitri, I guess it's a pitfall of different meanings evolving in different places.

So try to address your points in turn;

I take your point on the technological standpoint, and it makes sense to a degree, but I think with unexportable weapons already in service, like the F-22 and B-2, I wonder to what degree the US would be averse to selling a stripped out F-35?

Economically, there is still much to be spent on getting the F-35 into a serviceable condition, airframes and systems are one thing, weapons integration is another and there are also production start up costs to be considered. If the export airframes are going to bring in less than you still need to spend from the point of US cancellation then there is no economic argument for continuing. There is also the "F-20 factor" in that once a domestic customer (for whom, remember, the whole thing was conceived in the first place) turns it's back on the programme, international customers don't want to be seen as accepting sloppy seconds and also seek alternatives.

Strategically, there are alternatives and They are not nearly so inferior in the fighter role as some F-35 supporters seem to think. While it seems that Silent Eagle and Hornet are freely mentioned as stealthy alternatives, nobody seems to have considered that similar changes may also result in "silent" Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen, for example. Several customer nations have been actively seeking alternatives to the F-35 for some time so a lot of groundwork is already done.

The historical record gives several examples of programmes being cancelled and dying off immediately, but I cannot think of one that carried on for export only other than the Folland Gnat, which of course had the advantage of being very, very cheap.

reply to post by waynos


Do you happen to know more about the claim made earlier in this thread about the F-22 being cleared for the Japanese Self Defense Air Force (I think it was MurrayB that mentioned it)? I'm not trying to be critical; if true, it could open up a lot of new doors for exports of exclusive American technology, especially if they plan on making real money to supplement their debt crisis.

Ah yes, thanks for reminding me. I meant to ask Murray about that as it seems to have passed me by. Can you tell us more on that Murray?

I've tried an online search but all I can find is a mixture of speculative forum posts and news of a request to think about a possible export model, but nothing solid or official.

Arrow in the UK Info, according to documentary evidence, during 1955-56 the Arrow was very much favoured over the Thin-Wing Javelin by the RAF and it was envisaged with Bristol Olympus engines (Vulcan B.2, TSR2, Concorde) and manufacture was proposed to go to Armstrong Whitworth to follow on from their production of the Hawker Sea Hawk naval fighter. It was rejected because the projected in-service date of 1962 was too late (don't ask me, I'm just reporting).

Avro tried again in 1958 but this was when they were told we weren't having any more manned fighters and was responded to with an offer to sell the Lightning to Canada!

Source for this is a declassified report from BJSM, Washington (I don't know what this means) to MoD London.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


Finally someone who gets it! Even most of my fellow Canadians that I've talked to about this subject don't realise that, in order to force our hand, the US threatened to pull GM out of Canada, and then once we caved, they co-opted our best aerospace engineers to go and work for NASA. Those same people that designed the Arrow ended up putting man on the moon. Von Braun can eat his heart out.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
reply to post by MurrayB

 

Wasp-waist is not the only way to "obey" the "area rule" - it was jsut one of het easiest to incorporate in teh 1950's and retrofit to existing airframes such as the F-102 when the original straight fuselage proved to be a problem, and keep with the "advanced F-102" that became the F-106.

The CF-105 followed the area rule without need for a wasp waist, as have many other a/c since - www.avroarrow.org...

Seems I lost something very important that I've always been desiring, which is, are there another way to achieve the "area rule" effects on fuselage, and could be viewable.

The arrow-alike fuselage applied on Eurofighter seems to be another way to obey the area rule, which is clearly not by distribution of cross section but by retarding the shock wave.
Waiting for confirm now....