Early Canadair unmanned projects

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From Bill Upton's CANADAIR CL-89 AND CL-289 AIRBORNE SURVEILLANCE DRONES (published by the Canada Aviation and Space Museum):

Following the highly publicized demise of the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow programme and the subsequent related near cessation of missile engineering at Canadair Limited, new work was urgently needed in order to retain a worthwhile guided missile capability in Canadian industry. Also needed was the associated engineering expertise and personnel, foreign and domestic. The relative success of the Canadair produced CL-20 Velvet Glove and CL-54 Sparrow 2D missile projects, along with studies of Robot Dispatch Carriers (CL-85), and RCAF target vehicles (CL-36), certainly enriched the knowledge in unmanned systems.

Captions:
1. CL-20 Velvet Glove missile mockup on its launch pylon.
2. CL-54 Sparrow II preliminary test missile in June 1957.

 

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Canadair CL-36 Target Drone

This was a 1953 proposal for a high performance ramjet-powered target drone designed to serve as a target for aerial gunnery practice for the RCAF. It was to be capable of being ground launched, or later, air launched, from an Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck fighter aircraft of the RCAF.

This drone was a remotely controlled and powerful target model to use against the Canadair-built CL-20 Velvet Glove air-to-air guided missile. This was the first Canadair study of a drone system and marked the beginning of long-enduring and successful work on various unmanned flying vehicles other than missiles. Based on this drone, the later CL-89 design was studied as a similar, but autonomous version of a target drone.

 

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Canadair CL-85 Robot Dispatch Carrier

The CL-85 design was similar in form and function to the Convair Lobber. The proposed rocket-launched missile-like vehicle for the Canadian Army was first designed in July 1959, small enough that the complete system could be carried in a standard ¾ ton Army truck. It was to be 2.0 m (6.5 ft.) long with a span of 53 cm (21-inches). This short-range ballistic missile was proposed to carry up to 4.5 kg (10 lbs) of provisions, messages, and maps to entrapped troops across the vast distance of a dangerous or nuclear battlefield. Its tandem booster would impart sufficient velocity to the vehicle to enable it to home onto a radar beacon in the designated landing zone. Pinpoint landing was to be accomplished by a combination of a recovery parachute to slow the descent and stabilize the vehicle along with a long, crushable ground-penetration nose spike, delivering the much needed supplies to the awaiting personnel.

 

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Canadair CL-87 Army Logistic Missile System (ALMS)

This Canadair ALMS concept design was first conceived during the late 1950s, in a formal proposal for the US Army. This was a system for airborne emergency, ground-to-ground re-supply of armed forces troops under battlefield conditions. It was proposed as a small, guided vehicle capable of being air-carried by a number of available aircraft types to deliver emergency supplies to Army units with a high degree of reliability when other methods might prove impractical or impossible.

Advantages were seen when combining the capabilities of the earlier proposed CL-85 Robot Dispatch Carrier with those of the CL-87 ALMS airborne drop of supplies method as a basis for development to meet the overall requirements. The CL-87 system requirements proposed three separate variants that were capable of carrying usable payloads of 102 kg (225 lbs), 204 kg (450 lbs) and 408 kg (900 lbs). Each vehicle had a standard overall length of 183 cm (72-inches) with interchangeable fuselage sections of varying diameter, to suit the size of the payload. However, this concept proposal did not advance much farther beyond the preliminary engineering study phase. Only small desktop display models of the CL-87 ALMS were ever actually produced, some of these being displayed at the Plant 4 Missiles & Model Shop.

 

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From Bill Upton's THE DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & TESTING OF THE CANADAIR CL-227 REMOTELY PILOTED VEHICLES (published by the Canada Aviation Museum):

CL-65 Air Launched Towed Target

This 1957 initial study proposal was for a launch and recoverable fiberglass towed target system capable of being installed under the wing of RCAF T-33 Mk 3 or Sabre Mk 6 aircraft for air-to-air testing of the Sparrow II and other missile evaluation programmes. Although designated as a towed target, it was designed to be capable of effecting a pre-determined maneuver if released from the towline. The project was not accepted, with the RCAF deciding to employ Firebee drones obtained from the United States. Later, Delmar towed targets, bearing a striking similarity to the CL-65 design, were used by the RCAF T-33s until modern times.