THE AVRO CF-105 ARROW - WAS IT REALLY THAT GOOD?!?

[FLYBOYJ]

Great stuff Archangel - I really enjoyed the sites you shown....

Another myth I used to discuss with some of my friends while living in Canada was the rumor that the some in the US did not want the Arrow built because it was better than some of the US planes being developed at the same time the F-4, the F-106 and the BAe Lightning were just as capable interceptors as the Arrow.

Agree?!?!

[Nonskimmer]

Hogwash. The cancellation had nothing to do with the US or anyone else. There are more conspiracy theories surrounding the Arrow than you can shake a stick at. The fact is that development was running far behind schedule, and it was a huge cash cow. The government finally cancelled it. There's no more mystery to it than that.

[plan_D]

Being that the CF-105 was primarily an interceptor it's handling wouldn't need to be amazing. The EE Lightning didn't have a very good turning circle but it was quite manuverable in other areas due to the whole tail-plane moving instead of just elevators at the back. The F-5 could run rings around a Lightning. My dad saw it many times but the Lightning's job was never to dogfight, it was to get up fire off it's missiles and return home. With a cruising speed of Mach 0.87 and top speed of Mach 2.3 it could enter combat quickly and leave combat just as quickly. I imagine the same would apply to the CF-105.

I don't believe the U.S had anything to do with the cancellation. As you said, the Lightning was just as, if not more, capable than the CF-105. The CF-105 shared the same fate as the TSR.2, it was expensive. It was too expensive for the government to continue with it, so they cancelled.

That's what I think anyway.

[Nonskimmer]

Bang on. It was just far more expensive than it would have been worth, so it was cancelled.

[mosquitoman]

Pity, both those planes were way ahead of their time

[FLYBOYJ]

Agree totaly....

Did anyone see the movie about the Arrow? It had Dan Akroyd in it. Much of it was hogwash

[Nonskimmer]

It was a typical CBC production. Crap.
However I did like the full-scale mock-up of the plane they made for the movie.

[FLYBOYJ]

Yep - pretty cool!

I think the F-106 did just as well as the Arrow would of done except it didn't have many of the Arrows advanced features......

[Nonskimmer]

That could well be true. Not one of these Arrow "experts" that exist today really knows much about what they're gabbing on about anyway. Typical, I must say.

From the Air Force point of view, as much as many of them looked forward to trying the Arrow, all they really needed was a capable interceptor. The thing that really got me was that the government of the day actually thought for a time that they could replace fighter/interceptors entirely with those BOMARC missiles. The cheapest way out as always.
So as you can see, idiotic defence ideas are nothing new in Canada.

[FLYBOYJ]

Sad, but the CF-101s served well, not as well as an Arrow or a F-106, but they did well.....

I once heard that Truedau wanted F-4s. You ever hear that?

[Nonskimmer]

I had heard that the CAF looked briefly at acquiring Phantoms, but I don't know how much input Trudeau would have had in it. If it was his plan, you can be sure they'd have been cheap surplus USAF examples. Trudeau had balls, but he wasn't big on national defence. Strange. But then that's typical for Canadian prime ministers (the national defence bit).

The Voodoos were an adequate interceptor for many years, but they'd have done well to eventually outfit them with Sidewinder/Sparrow combinations like the Phantom. They carried nothing but Falcons and those nuclear tipped Genies right up to the end.

[FLYBOYJ]

I heard from some guys at Canadair, the CAF were looking at F-4s and a strike roll was mentioned - that's when it was decided to buy F-5s....

Thrifty or cheap!!!

[Nonskimmer]

Ah, that could be. The F-5's weren't a bad little plane at all. I'm not really sure how they measured up in the strike role though. As far as I know, none of them were ever involved in combat. Some of the CF-18's have flown strike sorties in the past, but as I recall the CF-5's were already removed from active service by then. I'd imagine they wouldn't have been a bad choice for the job when all was said and done. They wouldn't carry as much as the F-4, but they were pretty versatile little planes.

[FLYBOYJ]

Agree - as I mentioned before, the F-5s I seen in Botswana were beautiful, sad to see them given up so soon.

What I thought was the silliest thing of them all was the destructin of all the Arrows. What did that prove?!?

[Nonskimmer]

I'm not really sure. No one is, or if someone is they're not talking. Some say it was "standard procedure" in those days, whatever that's supposed to mean. They completely destroyed the prototypes, blueprints, everything. Yet as far as I know, the old Avro Canada records survive in government archives. At least some of them anyway. It's entirely possible that the blueprints are filed away somewhere too.

Now I sound like a conspiracy theorist.
It's possible though. What real value they'd prove to be today is anyone's guess though.

I like how at the end of that movie about the Arrow the sixth prototype with the new engines is secretly flown off to some secret location god knows where.
I think that might be stretching things just a tad, eh?