The Fantastic CF-105 Arrow

[valkyrian]

Well, usually the aircrafts i fell in love with, are of those types that never make it! One of them is the CF-105 Arrow. When the elegant protoype was built, the Russians were searching what is the best combination of "tubes plus  wing" while the Americans (with the F-4 and A-5A were in a better way, but still were lucking of vision). Unfortunately, this superb interceptor failed because of the fourth dimension that every aircraft has, besides height, length and span, that is politics................The Canadians recieved..........CF-101 Voodoos and CF-104 Starfighters, noone of them had the performance or the capabilities of the white canadian arrow.
Please make a comment, as a contribution to this unborn legend............

[Globetrotter]

well, I love your posts, Valkyrian! It is sooo true... the thing on the 4th dimension well, just it is like that!!!

I also have a similar case, like the Mirage 4000....

I haveto admit the aircraft looked really good, and was quite advanced for its time...but is, unfortunately rather unknown.

Fast as a F-104, I presume that also more maneuverable than it, and a really all-weather aircraft I would have liked to see in the canadian and others AFs...

[valkyrian]

Well Thomas, the 4000 deserves a thread of its own. Another unlucky design....the CF-105 represented a quantum leap in everything, propulsion (the Iroquois turbojet) electronics (astra system) the aerodynamics (tailless delta).....from nose to the top it was a miracle performed by one company, the Avro of Canada....

[tigershark]

Sadly I know little about the CF-105 Arrow so please share more and add in a link or to so I could do some good reading.  The Mirage 4000 in similar ways to the mightily F-20 (had to slip it in) came out at the wrong time.  Maybe it should have its own thread or least make a Mirage thread.  I'm always interested in current older models still flying to and the never respected F-1C types that weren't shown enough love.   You could put a RC400 RDY radar in it and launch MICA radar guided missiles make yourself a low cost point defense fighter. 

[Webmaster]

I am in awe of this aircraft as well, it has been somewhat lucky compared to others though, at least a movie was dedicated to its story.

I think everything was scrapped, including all the manufacturing equipment. Really sad. I think not, but maybe you know more... did any prototype make it to a museum?

I'm not sure how long it would have lived though... in which quantities and at what cost to the taxpayer. But it would have made a better interceptor than missiles and the Voodoo. However, I love the F-101 and F-104 as well, I am sure the latter would still have entered service. Frustrating about its story, is that they were already so far in the development before it was canned.

By the way, don't forget the TSR.1 

[Globetrotter]

oouh.. TSR.1 make me creepy it was somewhat .... "un elegant"

There was an Argentine project too. Fairly similar to the F/A-18.... but it was nice! it is sad to be it was

I can't find the page now, it used to be at hangardigital.com.ar anyone heard of it?? It now says the page is no longer on the server... (didn't pay the fee???)

[valkyrian]

Thanx Niels for the picture!


The Canadian Government did everything to destroy this effort. The Arrow was something of the ATF of its time. A nation like Canada although it possessed the technological level couldn't do it alone. My question is how those brain dead English didn't came and help. After all it was AVRO Canada, like we say AVRO Vulcan, and the Canadians were in the commonwealth. Anyway, they destroyed everything  but with the arrow killed their capability in aero industry. Even with the J75 instead of the Iroquois engines the Arrow was far better than the Voodoo, not to mention anything of its time. Maybe the Americans didn't want such a hot performer to exist, and sabotaged a little. Maybe the Canadian government was short sighted. But the Arrow was quite an achievement. And it was not untill some years after the arrow, that the English made the same stupid move, they killed their TSR2 in favor to the F-111K, which although it seemed good on a paper it prooved much costlier.

Hey thomas, what is this Argentinian hornet like fighter?

[Globetrotter]

I don't remember the name :'(

I'll search and tell you

[Globetrotter]

I GOT IT!!

SAIA 90 was the name, and it was a project that didn't even have a proto...

http://miarroba.com/foros/ver.php?foroid=833521&temaid=3601702

the link is in spanish, but there are some good drawings of how it would have looked, I am going to translate it later

[Globetrotter]

The main things mentiones are:

• The aircraft would carry a payload of 2 AIM 9 and 4 AMRAAMs or 5000 kilograms of bombs and weapons
• It was a Mach-2-capable design
• would have been produced with Dornier help

[Flanker.94]

[quote author=Webmaster link=topic=749.msg7832#msg7832 date=1182520020
I think everything was scrapped, including all the manufacturing equipment. Really sad. I think not, but maybe you know more... did any prototype make it to a museum?
[/quote]

The Arrow made it to a museum... But just the nose, the cokpit, the wings and the air intakes. They did a full-scale replica in Toronto. I think I know why the Arrown program was cancelled. The Canadian government thought that misilles launched from the groung will be more effective than interceptors carrying air-air missiles. Later, they found that they were wrong. Since then, the Canadian government has bought American fighters.

[valkyrian]

Hi Flanker! thanks for passing by...a canadian opinion on this matter has a specific gravity, but let me tell you that what you said was the official excusion about why they did cancel the program.