Avro CF-105 Arrow and its variants

Greetings all and sundry Arrowites of the Web.
Due to a couple of house moves, computer upgrades etc I'm deficient in my profile collection and trying to recover some of Karl Mesojedniks Arrow Art. Karl died last year.
His websites were
www.deviantart.com

karlwjm - Hobbyist, Digital Artist | DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com www.deviantart.com
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Karl Mesojednik's Aircraft Art

Karl Mesojednik's Aircraft Art. 91 likes. Created to promote and feature my Aircraft Art website located at: http://www.karlsaircraftart.com, and where new Profile Designs and Reduxes will be...
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and he never got to complete
http://www.karlsaircraftart.com
In particular I'm interested in recovering the following
MkIX Canadian Forces 'The Big 2' Trainer (105932) | French Navy | Luftwaffe Mk. 9K/L
MkVII Dual Seat Trainer: Canadian Armed Forces Arrows (410 Sqn) (105749)
EW-variant: Canadian Forces 414 'Black Knight' EW Sqn. (105779)
KC-Variant: Royal Austrailian Air Force (15189) Tanker
MkVI Orenda Gas Turbine Division (Iroquois testbed) in bare-metal finish (CF-AOE)
Yours
Rus
an example of his work
KAAP Arrow collection.jpg
 
From, Avro Arrow The Story of the Avro Arrow From its Evolution to its Extinction.
 

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Hello folks... today is Christmas 1 month before Christmas, and I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

Seems the National Research Council of Canada has a crapton of Arrow documents that somewhat miraculously escaped the shredders after Black Friday, February 20, 1959.

Including RCA ASTRA-1 stuff.

[Simpson mode ON]
Took me 20 years of Arrow-mania since 2002 to discover this. D'oh !
[Simpson mode OFF]

 
For a start, they have 15 "performance reports" all the way from 1954 to fateful 1959.
Attached are Report 14 and an addendum, plus Report 15 extremely compressed so low quality (blame the forum too low attachement limits).

Ferry range is given at 1600 nautical miles (average, with or without an external ventral tank plus another tank in the missile bay.)

Highest number is 1735 nautical miles: 3213 km or 1997 imperial miles.

Had Arrows ever been deployed to Europe, the ferry flights should have been
- Gander - Keflavik - Shannon (Newfoundland - Iceland - Ireland).
Range for a direct "Alcock & Brown" flight profile (Gander - Shannon or reverse, 3184 km) would have been very marginal if not insufficient. So better to make a fuel stop in Iceland.
 

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And this, folks, is the perfect antidote to all the annoying myths (if not fanaticism) that have developed around the Arrow for decades, including Randall Withcomb whackiness.
Now we have raw, brute performance numbers straight out of Avro Canada, 1958.
And this is paramount. There are even the climb rates, so it will possible to pit them against Phantom / F-15 "Streak Eagle" / MiG-25 records.

Same for the radars and missiles - R.C.A Astra-I & Hughes MA-1C, Sparrow II & Falcons.

This is Christmas in November !

Let's add more porn to the porn fest.

A bunch of highly detailed reports related to the Arrow (almost mythical) analog FBW system - seemingly similar to Concorde or Mirage 2000, except 10 years and 20 years earlier, respectively (1958 - 1969 - 1978). Also F-16, 1974.

I have to admit I have difficulties understanding the system intricacies. Will try to compare it to Concorde, just to see.
 

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There are also a bunch of reports detailing plans up to 1961-62 for the Arrows Mk.2, the ones with Iroquois: RL-206 to RL-237 (in the documents they are known as 25206 to 25237 so I frantically browsed all these numbers)

I'm in heaven !
 

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Archibald said:
And this, folks, is the perfect antidote to all the annoying myths (if not fanaticism) that have developed around the Arrow for decades, including Randall Withcomb whackiness.
Click to expand...
Makes for interesting comparison to the F-106A's performance data:

Basically, there's not much to choose between the CF-105 and the F-106 in terms of performance or armament. Maybe very slightly longer intercept range for a nominal mission, but there's not a lot in it, and the F-106 can carry drop tanks. But the CF-105 is nearly twice the size, with twice as many engines, and therefore much more expensive to build and maintain.
 
Two possible explanations there:
  • The Canadian requirement put more emphasis on range than speed - the F-101B had getting on for twice the combat radius of the F-106A - and the CF-105 was falling well short of requirements
  • The Canadian requirement placed a high priority on a twin seat/twin engine type
These are not mutually exclusive, of course.
 
Fact was that Arrow combat range was short, very short... 200 to 300 miles... no more. A bit surprising for an aircraft this size, yet the Iroquois and delta wing drag may explain part of it (even with primitive analog FBW, surface of that wing was colossal: 114 m2). For the sake of comparison a Mirage IVA was barely 75 m2, and so was the Mirage 4000.
Delta wings are on paper optimal for supersonic flight, but there are two drawbacks.
Basically the aerodynamic potential was paid in lesser agility, landing speed and drag. Only FBW truly reaped the full benefits.

This is the paradox of the Arrow: I don't know if its FBW system was evolved enough to fill the gaps with the delta wings, considering the sheer surface of it.

Hard to guess whether it was on Mirage III / Draken side, or on Mirage 2000 / Gripen's.

AFAIK it was a matter of moving the CoG to the rear and tame the resulting instability with the FBW system. Dassault dared to do that with the 2000, which had marginal stability (not full instability) when the system was shut down.
Yet they clearly saw the benefits when they flew Mirage IIIs against Mirage 2000s after 1978. On landing speed alone, analog FBW dropped a "delta" speed from a tricky 180 kt (Mirage III tires suffered and blowed up a lot) to Mirage F1 125 kt (numbers from memory).

What I wonder if the Canadians took such step with the Arrow. We should wonder where was the CoG on that aircraft; did it had some marginal stability / instability tamed by the FBW system ? Enough to "correct" the delta wing classic flaws ?

Note that the Arrow did not needed agility as Gripen or F-16 or Mirage 2000 needed. It was a brute force interceptor. In its peculiar case the FBW system would further improve the delta aerodynamic efficiency in supersonic flight
(very much Mirage IV vs Mirage 4000, considering the size and weight).
 
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Archibald said:
A bit surprising for an aircraft this size, yet the Iroquois and delta wing drag may explain part of it (even with primitive analog FBW, surface of that wing was colossal: 114 m2). For the sake of comparison a Mirage IVA was barely 75 m2, and so was the Mirage 4000.
Click to expand...
Offhand, the CF-105 was designed around a very demanding manoeuvre requirement: a 2g turn at Mach 2 and 50,000 feet, without loss of speed or altitude. That makes a very big wing inevitable.
 
RLBH said:
Two possible explanations there:
  • The Canadian requirement put more emphasis on range than speed - the F-101B had getting on for twice the combat radius of the F-106A - and the CF-105 was falling well short of requirements
  • The Canadian requirement placed a high priority on a twin seat/twin engine type
These are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Click to expand...
Since the supersonic bomber threat never evolved, and Canada had bought into SAGE, allowing more efficient direction of their interceptors, The F-101Bs were just as effective as the F-106 or Arrow would have been.
Sage was necessary - Candadian DND studies on Arrow employment showed that using their existing manual system (Basically Battle of Britain GCI), they'd be completing intercepts over Boston, Albany, and Detroit. Good for Boston, bad for Montreal.
Note also that without ASTRA (A real bucket of squid) and Sparrow II (It took until the 1990s to achieve that in a Sparrow-sized envelope. Phoenix was possible in the mid-'60s, but was more an air-launched SAM than anything else.)
 
They made the right choice to go with MX-1179 / MA-1C & Falcons... between 1953 and January 1956 - and then back to that in September 1958... too late.
What killed the Arrow was the Astra / Sparrow II foolishness. Had they stuck with the exact system of the F-106, it would lowered the cost and helped integration with NORAD US interceptors
- exactly like the CF-100, which MG-2 radar was part of the Hughes MG- series also found on F-86D and F-89.

By this metric, the turning point in the Arrow sad story was Hughes refusing to mate MX-1179 with Sparrow - only their Falcons, but the RCAF (correctly) hated that missile. Alas for them, they lost Hughes there. As they lost the same company on the C-102 Jetliner, but that's another story.

Going for RCA and Sparrow II was a suicide.

On top of that, I recently learned that circa 1956 the Air Defense Command considered a lower cost alternative to LRI-X / F-108 and notably to its radar that become the ASG-18.

Guess what alternative they considered ? A MX-1179 with a 40-inch antenna, same diameter found later on ASG-18... and also the diameter allowed by the Arrow big radome.

LRI-X was interrupted between May 1956 and April 1957. It was at this moment they considered the larger antenna MX-1179. Had the canadians played a little smarter early 1956, they could have carried the day. The Arrow fitted nicely that hole in LRI-X... big NORAD interceptor ? check. MX-1179 ? check. Larger 40 inch antenna ? check.
 
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What I discovered is that Hughes tried THREE times to create a radar with a 40-inch antenna in the 1950's

1- First try: the F-102B, future F-106, and its MX-1179 in 1953-54. Failed, got a F-102A's 24-inch antenna instead.

2 - Second try: LRI-X "stopgap", also MX-1179 with 40 inch antenna, went nowhere (1956)

3 - Third time is the charm: AN/ASG-18

Meanwhile on the other side of the border, in 1953-56 and... September 1958, the Arrow is also interested a) in MX-1179 and b) if possible, with a 40-inch antenna...
 
RLBH said:
Archibald said:
A bit surprising for an aircraft this size, yet the Iroquois and delta wing drag may explain part of it (even with primitive analog FBW, surface of that wing was colossal: 114 m2). For the sake of comparison a Mirage IVA was barely 75 m2, and so was the Mirage 4000.
Click to expand...
Offhand, the CF-105 was designed around a very demanding manoeuvre requirement: a 2g turn at Mach 2 and 50,000 feet, without loss of speed or altitude. That makes a very big wing inevitable.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. That requires some explanation. In a turn, I'd expect the drag penalty of a delta to be very high and speed loss to be substantial.

The F-104 is one of the few aircraft I know of that was designed and optimized for high-altitude maneuvering combat at supersonic speeds. It was supposed to be a simple day fighter, a sort of supersonic F-86E. I have read that the chosen wing geometry reflected the need for minimal drag during supersonic turns.
 
RLBH said:
Two possible explanations there:
  • The Canadian requirement put more emphasis on range than speed - the F-101B had getting on for twice the combat radius of the F-106A - and the CF-105 was falling well short of requirements
  • The Canadian requirement placed a high priority on a twin seat/twin engine type
These are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, the F-101s also came from USAF stocks--they were not new builds. This meant immediate availability, compatibility with USAF NORAD squadrons (I saw USAF National Guard F-101Bs in North Dakota when I was a boy), and lower cost compared to either new F-106s or continued Arrow weapons system development.

In retrospect, at least, the F-101 was clearly the better choice. It met the actual need, had as effective a weapons system as could be had at he time, was popular with pilots, and lasted 30 years in service.
 
Yup, the range was very short - another high price to pay to ARH. K-band also hated water vapor and (bad luck) Earth atmosphere is packed full with the thing: rain, hail, clouds, fog...
 
Here's a link to the Arrow 2 manual (It's too big to attach to this post).

Edit: Does anyone know if any of the Arrow's engineering drawings survived?
 
I'm surprised with the shortcoming identified that they didn't scale back to a single-engine, more affordable model with lower performance parameters. The engine would have needed some work to finish, but they could have salvaged some of that brain trust. When missile technology failed to substitute for manned fighters, all was lost to the winds of time.
 
Quite frankly the Diefenbaker cabinet should've been prosecuted for high-treason in what they did in their idiotic and extremely shortsighted cancellation of the Arrow (The intentional destruction of all of the engineering data and drawings was IMO outright treason) never mind the irreparable damage done to the Canadian aerospace industry.
 
MadRat said:
I'm surprised with the shortcoming identified that they didn't scale back to a single-engine, more affordable model with lower performance parameters. The engine would have needed some work to finish, but they could have salvaged some of that brain trust. When missile technology failed to substitute for manned fighters, all was lost to the winds of time.
Click to expand...

If Avro Canada had been aiming at an export market perhaps they would have shifted to a more affordable type (C.104 variant?). But it was DND and RCAF who had formed the requirement and the GoC who was to foot the bill for the CF-105.

Compared with the CF-105, any 'single-engined Arrow' would necessarily have been even shorter on range. As an interceptor of High Arctic targets, that would have made it worse than useless (much like the what-if Canadian purchase of Convair F-102s as is sometimes posited).

The RCAF ended up with the single-engined, Canadair-built Starfighters because they were thought to satisfy the new NATO nuclear strike role. I doubt that a single-engined, delta-winged C.104 variant would have performed any better than the CF-104.
 
aviationarchives.blogspot.com

AVRO CF-105 1949 Proposal Report

A copy of the AVRO company proposal for the CF-105 Arrow aircraft. Dated December 1949. Download here or here or here or here (22 Megs)
aviationarchives.blogspot.com aviationarchives.blogspot.com

Think this report has already been posted but just in case I'm wrong:
aviationarchives.blogspot.com

AVRO CF-105 Overall View Manual

A copy of the AVRO company report on the overall view of the CF-105 Twin Engine, Supersonic, All-Weather Fighter aircraft. Download here ...
aviationarchives.blogspot.com aviationarchives.blogspot.com
 
How different was the mach 3 arrow from the mark 2 variat? Like are we talking about a relatively minor upgrade or a practically new plane.
 
Apophenia said:
Wanald said:
Roughly mach 2.
Click to expand...

Yep. Top speed hit during trials was Mach 1.98 at 50,000 feet by RL202. Note that this was with Pratt & Whitney J75-P-3 turbojets, not the more powerful Orenda PS.13 Iroquois (23,500 lbf vs 25,600 lbf).
Click to expand...
I recall reading somewhere that the iroquois was designed to be uprated to near 30,000 lbf relatively easily, but can't for the life of me find were I read that on this forum.
 
DamienB said:
overscan (PaulMM) said:
I wrote a script and downloaded and named 583 items from the nrc-digital-repository.canada.ca archive. Its 11.8GB of PDFs in a ZIP file.

https://secretprojects.co.uk/ebooks/cf-105/CF-105.zip
Click to expand...
Download fails around 350mb every time for me. Try hosting it on Dropbox or something?
Click to expand...
I can download the whole thing fine in Chrome which would suggest it isn't really my problem.

I don't have Dropbox, but I'll see if I can share it via Onedrive.
 
I hope that one day someone will using the Arrow-1 blueprints to build a flying full-scale replica of RL-201 (There should still J-75 turbojets lying around too).
 
Simple question I don't think I've seen the answer to: how many Arrows did Canada intend to buy? How big was the program?

I ran across this

"The Air Council would propose re-equipping half of the RAF’s allweather fighter force, quoted as 288 aircraft, with the CF-105 instead of the inferior thin-winged Javelin."

I think that means the RAF had an interest in purchasing 144 (not 288) aircraft. But nothing so far about how many were in the program for Canada. I've managed to track down numbers for some other programs like the F-108 (400), F-12B (93), and B-70 (250), but the number for the CF-105 program has eluded me so far.
 

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