[ZN-Viper said,

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What? The Avro Arrow's development and production was discontinued and destroyed because some fool in congress decided that they could protect the country with missiles alone. It was 5 years ahead of its time, and best of all, it was Canadian

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Yes, It was discontinued, but a Member of Parlement, not a congressmen. We don't have Congress. We have the House of Commons and the Senete.

And it was scrapped because the government changed. Defenbeger.....evile...

But it was the most advanced aircraft of it's time. It reached mach 2 in vertical flight, and not in a downward swoop like most aircraft of its time.

The American Government "bullied" the Canadians into scrapping there program in favour of missles in the north of Canada because of Canada didn't agree, the US would place the missles on the boarder and then Soviet planes would land on Canadian Citys. And the American Presedent of the time had no remorce.

There is a myth that one excaped scapping and in hidding in a barn somewhere.

I saw parts of an Arrow in Ottawa once. It's my favorte aircraft of all time.

And VH16, I'm half American and Canadian. I have Scottish, Irish, and English on my moms side and I have French and Greek on my Dads side.

I agree with the ways the Anthems were conseved, but just because Canada and the states are two sides of a coin doesn't mean either are right, just that they took a diffrent route.

Life: No one gets out alive.

Im a Wright lol! Must be in my blood! I used to try and fly using trays as wings lol

Avro Arrow,

Cool jet. Cutting edge, sort of, stuff. Too bad it was too expensive to
carry the project into production and commissioned use.

I guess the US could have bought it but it wouldn't have been "natural" thinking to do so. Back in the 50's the F-111 and F4 mutli use jets already were in development, and several US Air Force high altitude interceptors already were in service ... F-102 Delta Dagger (Mach 1+), the F 104 Starfighter (Mach 2+), somewhere along the way the Delta Dart F-106 (Mach 2+) took over for the Dagger. I think the Starfighter was commissioned for service in 1958. Interesting thing about the Dagger is that they had problems with achieving speeds until they modified the fuselage to make it wasp-waisted or "coke bottle" in shape. And for a good while the Starfighter was the NATO interceptor of choice. Heck they even showed up in Godzilla movies.

Anyway, is it true that they cut up the working prototypes? That sounds bizarre unless maybe the developed technologies were too sensitive to leave around in working physical form?

The Canadian Government destroyed all the documents and the working prototypes. As I said, there are bits and peices in the National Avation Museam however. But only a cockpit and a nosecone.

And it was cutting edge.

The plane was first flown on March 25, 1958. The program was scrapped a year later on Febuary 20th. And yes, one of the reasons was high costs. But the change in govenment was also a major factor.





The last image is all thats left of the legacy

Life: No one gets out alive.

ah Delta Daggers and "area rule" how this brings back my aero and hydro-dynamics classes!

<shudders> Starfighters, also known as the Widowmaker. dreadful aircraft. downward pointing ejection seats and that stall-prone T-tail. bl**dy fast though.

Taw said

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<shudders> Starfighters, also known as the Widowmaker. dreadful aircraft. downward pointing ejection seats and that stall-prone T-tail. bl**dy fast though.

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Yeah. Joke was that was why it had stubby wings.... as in why try so hard to keep it in the air when it was going to come down really really fast anyway

Funny thing though. Japan and Germany kept the birds for a very long time. I read somewhere that they actually worked out the bugs for themselves so that their 104s were way better than the ones in service for the USAF.

@RILMS

Wow. Just came back from a short cruise. There quite a heated debate about the Arrow isn't there? You'd think Diefenbaker was a war criminal in some of those sites. From what I can tell, not even the Dief defenders really are able to satisfy themselves about the dismantling/destruction that was done, at least not with any real factual arguments which, to me means it was for reasons of the risks of espionage.

If the Arrow was that advanced, it would not have made any sense to let it sit around, plans and prototypes intact. This WAS the Cold War after all. The McCarthyites were running rough shod over civil liberties in the US. The other stuff about Dief, I won't go into. Don't want to get <<clicked>>.



Edited by - Indy11 on 19-12-2003 21:07:37

I still like the SR-71 Blackbird better. And sorry for getting political. I'm an American, and it was a joke. To all those offended, accept my apologies. How could Canada scrape all of them? Was there only a limited production? And are there and FL mods for it (I know it's an Off-topic forum, but it is an FL site)? --- VH16

With the concorde gone my hopes of going beyond mach are gone, sigh. Another life long dream off the list.

Whoever came up with "Mission Commision" should be lined up and shot

@Viv

Well. RILMS posted earlier that all of the prototypes were dismantled. Some rumors had it that the parts were sunk into Lake Ontario. There doesn't appear to be an answer that satisfies anyone who is concerned with what happened to the Arrow as to the why of it along with the how and where of it.

There apparently was a CBC documentary a while back on the Arrow that kind of points fingers or at least suggests some culpabilities of the Diefenbaker government and the "evil empire" to south, the USA.

The consensus points in what otherwise is a dispute seem to be that :

1) The Arrow was cutting edge on technologies applied to the aircraft.
2) The costs of its production (needless to say) were expected to be very high... the developmental costs already were.
3) About a year and half after the conservatives led by Diefenbaker took over, the project was dumped but not before the Arrow actually flew... per RILMS, in 1958.
4) The designs and the prototypes all were destroyed.

It's that last point that really throws the Arrow into the category of WTF happened, there's got to have been a dirty conspiracy, Dief was an idiot type argumentation. There doesn't seem to be a very decent explanation looking back at things now.

I still think that some security minded paranoids decided to take measures to keep cutting edge secrets forever secret if they were not going to become applied to Canadian defense efforts. Anyway, that's my very uninformed outsiders take on this.

@VH,

The aircraft was only in prototype stages. I think 5 had been made. And no, there is no FL mod for it , but it would be kool if someone made it.

And I did watch the CBC special. Thats how I fell in love with the aircraft.


The Death of a Canadian Dream

Less then a year after scrapping the Arrow, NATO suggested Canada should buy 6 squadrons of McDonnell F-101Voodoos. Ironically, this was one of the alternative designs the RCAF had studied, but rejected, before embarking on the Arrow.

BTW, I'm getting most of my info here

Life: No one gets out alive.

anyone remember the tsr 2? she'd still kick arse, even today

I was just waiting for u to post that, Ben! I was wavering whether to say it myself, but reckoned u'd say summat so i waited to let u get in on first.

Tactical Strike Reconnaisance 2, the most advanced multi-role aircraft of it's day anywhere in the world. If it had been produced, it would still be in service today. It had all the features of today's jet fighter/bombers back in the early 60s when everybody else's were still on the drawing boards or in the engineer's heads. But the Defence White Paper proposed missiles, not expensive fighter planes, so it was scrapped. Some years later we bought F-4 Phantoms to do the same job.

25 years ago when the Panavia Tornado project was lagging, there was serious discussion of cancelling Britain's involvement in the project and of buying F-15s instead. If it had been a purely British programme then I think it would have died, but because other European nations were involved it was more politically damaging for the Govt to abandon the project than to stay.

How history repeats itself, if it can.

All this technology is great, but remember it was WWI swordfish that crippled the Bismark. In the end, computers help, but it's down to the pilots with their hands on the stick. --- VH16

Even the lowliest starflier can defeat the mightiest titan

Whoever came up with "Mission Commision" should be lined up and shot

@ff & Taw

TSR2

Interesting. Sort of the opposite alignment of political forces for and against compared to the Arrow. In Canada, Liberals seemingly* was for it and the conservatives against it. In the UK, the Tories were in favor of the TSR2 and Labor was against it.

I cannot believe that anyone thought that the F111 was a good export warplane... such that it would be referred to as an adequate alternative to the designed specs of the TSR2 or any other multipurpose military jet. Oh well, that's just my personal opinion.

The UKGov't thought about resurrecting it in 1981? That's interesting. What shot that down?

*It seems like Liberals also would have cancelled the Arrow had they won the election and likely even sooner than the conservatives under Diefenbaker but that's one of the bones of political contention about the Arrow.

>>>edit>>>> In Canada, they are the Liberal party, not Labor. Oooops.

Edited by - Indy11 on 22-12-2003 02:34:02

thatcher, who else

It is better to aim for the stars and hit the tops of the trees than to aim for nothing and hit it dead on.