Canada Came "This" Close

"SBA Thanks You For All The Fish" (santabarbarianlsx)
06/16/2020 at 04:11 • Filed to: None

This was quite an achievement. I’d forgotten that it was rolled out in Toronto.

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DISCUSSION (8)

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/16/2020 at 05:32

I read the Arrow story every 5 years or so and every time I get sad and pissed off.

chaozbandit > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/16/2020 at 06:09

Dont forget the UK came pretty close to the TSR2 before it was promptly killed off for the F111.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/16/2020 at 06:43

Didn’t they recently discover the blueprints not that long ago? Would be amazing to see a functional full-size replica come to fruition...the cost of that would be astronomical though...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saved-avro-arrow-blueprints-ordered-destroyed-1.5416554

TheRealBicycleBuck > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
06/16/2020 at 06:54

That was mentioned in the article. One of the engineers was told to destroy them and he hid them in his basement instead. They were discovered after his death.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > TheRealBicycleBuck
06/16/2020 at 07:17

Ah! Saw that in the article but misunderstood...thought the originals were destroyed and the fellow who had them in his basement had a full copy of the originals :)

someassemblyrequired > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/16/2020 at 09:16

The Jetliner might have been the more important development:

Howard Hughes wanted to buy 30 for TWA , but like the Arrow, they just scrapped them instead. Interestingly they had oval windows, and would not have had the same problems as the early Comets.

gmctavish needs more space > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/16/2020 at 11:57

Yet, Avro Aircraft may have faced the same fate even if the Arrow programme had continued. “You just need to think about the vast number of aircraft you see at the ‘boneyard’ in Pima, Arizona,” says Gregory. “All those American firms were churning out new designs all through the Cold War because they were fed contracts by the government. The United States can afford that, but I just don’t know what contract the Canadian government could have given to Avro to have carried the company into 60s, 70s and 80s.”

The government quite possibly wouldn’t have had to carry the company if they hadn’t killed the Jetliner:

In 1950 the Cold War turned hot when North Korea invaded the South. CD Howe demanded that Avro cancel the Jetliner project and prioritise the manufacture of the Canuck. In a foreshadowing of the fate of the Arrow, American interest in manufacturing the plane was ignored and workers cut up the Jetliner prototype.

I hope the surviving blueprints means that a replica can be made, but I highly doubt it’ll happen. What a frustrating story, I’ve read lots about it since I was a kid, and it’s always frustrating to read.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
06/17/2020 at 01:52

Avro Arrow and the BAC TSR2 are both tragic victims of political whim over technical expertise.

Almost makes one wish that fighter jets were something other than “fighters”... and relieved of their weaponry role, and allowed to be engineering exercises, and air racers. Less subject to the political winds, and weaponry and stealth anti-detection aspects.

Personally, I am quite intrigued by the JAS-39 Gripen by Saab Aircraft... and while it is a versatile weapon’s system, and I am sure it is quite lethal, it seems like it is still an aircraft first, rather than an overly complex airborne weapons platform. I can only imagine what an aeronautics laboratory or a fight demonstration team specification of the Gripen would be like, without needing the ECM and ordnance hard-points.

I also like aircraft like the HiMAT, X-29, P-38, and others that are still very interesting aircraft, when settting the weaponry aspect aside.