The unusual clamshell entrances to the Avro CF-105 Arrow cockpit.

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PM_ME_YER_MUDFLAPS@reddit

The Arrow wasn’t weird, it was glorious

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Glorious in what could have been if they didn't kill off our aerospace industry. Pushing the Arrow into active service was dubious, but killing the infrastructure and the industry was unforgivable considering we adopted the CF-101 voodoo and the CF-104 starfighter after,

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fireandlifeincarnate@reddit

But the Voodoo is so cool :(

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AnInfiniteAmount@reddit

It also could land. Unlike the Starfighter.

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CoastRegular@reddit

Huh? That Starfighter could land 100% of the time.

Oh, wait, you meant in one piece, didn't you?

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thelowwayman90@reddit

My grandfather’s small company built many of the houses that were meant to house the workers who would build the CF-105…this was back in the day before houses were paid for before being built like they mostly are today. When the project was cancelled he had no choice but to sell the houses for pennies and it ruined the company and left the family destitute. It left my dad and his 5 siblings to grow up very poor, having to work every night after elementary and high school to help keep the family afloat

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SuspiciousCucumber20@reddit

He sold houses for pennies?

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thecanadiansniper1-2@reddit

Why are people downvoting? For people that grew up speaking english in NA its a common idiom to say you lost money by selling. The full idiom is selling for pennies on the dollar.

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ErinyesMegara@reddit

The full phrase is usually “for Pennies on the dollar”, I.e. “take a penny for every dollar you originally spent” — to sell something at a steep loss.

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thelowwayman90@reddit

Sorry, it’s a common phrase/saying here and not meant to be taken literally, but I should’ve specified. To do or sell something “for pennies” (ie 1 cent coins) means you made no (or very little) money/profit. Basically he had no choice but to take a loss on the project because no one would pay anything close to market value for the homes now that there was no factory to go along with them, and he had to sell them basically at cost to the only business willing to buy them.

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jdmgto@reddit

...then what do you call the stupid canopy that makes it harder to get in?

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Ams4r@reddit

Weirdly glorious or gloriously weird ?

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Burphel_78@reddit

¿Porque no los dos?

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Burphel_78@reddit

¿Porque no los dos?

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mnp@reddit

Interesting tow bar.

https://fighterjetsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/AIA2005_Schmoll_F_111_dump_and_burn_nachts.jpg

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wrongwayup@reddit

That's really perfect for when you want bad centerline visibility and the inability to board the aircraft from both sides

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CosmicPenguin@reddit

Ostensibly they were going to switch to something more normal for the production model but yeah this was a Cold War interceptor so everything except MOAR SPEED was optional.

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JJohnston015@reddit

Did the contract include a crane so you could get in and out?

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Spino2425@reddit

If Canada didn’t cancel this program, we probably would’ve still had them flying around today

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Arbalete_rebuilt@reddit

Never seen such a thing before.

How did the ejection seat work? Did it go out through the floor? Or was the canopy blown off before the seat would go up? Punching through the structure can't be an option with that solid frame.

Was there a back seat installed? Can't see any windows. Must have been a hell of a ride then.

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propsie@reddit

The Arrow was an interceptor. The guy in the back was likely a radar intercept officer, rather than a navigator.

Conventional wisdom at the time was that RIOs needed a dark environment to get enough contrast on their dim, fuzzy radar screens - widows are counterproductive to this. The Sea Vixen had a similar oubliette in the ["coal hole"](https://iansales.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/8_seavixen.jpg)

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Jerrell123@reddit

I wouldn’t take your reasoning as a truism, given the RA-5’s similar window layout for the navigator. The SR-71 similarly had a navigator/camera operator in the back, and had small windows.

The Arrow’s backseater was a RIO, but not necessarily because the windows were small.

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mich341@reddit

Wild. I found a pic of the back windows! link

The Mark I is described as a two seater, so the navigator was stuffed back there I guess! Anyone have more info?

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cmperry51@reddit

IIRC, the clamshell was a development stopgap, a bubble canopy was planned.

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Sivalon@reddit

There were windows.

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thecanadiansniper1-2@reddit

The Arrow was a victim of the Conservative Government. I just don't understand why jigs and the prototype itself was destroyed, if there was a mole in the Arrow project as the RCMP thought there was why destroy the jigs, drawings and what not if the aircraft was not going into service? I don't understand why the Progressive Conservatives under Diefenbaker destroyed our aerospace industry. Was it really necessary to kneecap Avro Canada and force a brain drain down south? I mean the British cancelled the TSR2 project but kept the prototype, there is no reason why we couldn't do the same and turn the Avro Arrow into a test mule as it was already flying. Arguments can be made that the Arrow was not economically viable, obsolete (though I debate this as we adopted another two interceptors the CF-101 Voodoo and the aluminum death tube) and what not. What really stung was killing Avro Canada and its associated parts and engine suppliers, it feels like Diefenbaker threw out the baby with the bathwater only to later have the situation blow up in his face with the Bomarc fiasco.

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Dark_Magus@reddit

Sheer vindictiveness on Diefenbaker's part, that's why. The Arrow wasn't his program, so he wanted it destroyed without a trace.

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Corvid187@reddit

*independent aviation industry. Canada still has an aviation industry, it's just primarily subordinate to US manufactures.

As it happens, the TSR2 was also ordered destroyed when first cancelled I believe?

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DaveB44@reddit

Canada still has an aviation industry, it's just primarily subordinate to US manufactures.

I wouldn't classify Airbus as American!

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flightist@reddit

Thanks, Trump!

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9999AWC@reddit

I mean Bombardier still exists and produces business jets and related military platforms. But it killed LearJet, their train division, and commercial aviation divisions.

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flightist@reddit

BCA is what I was talking about. The end of the commercial division marked a significant end point in the Canadian aerospace industry.

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Corvid187@reddit

Fair, should probably have said international ones :)

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emurange205@reddit

Y'all are supposed to be building the DHC-515 up there somewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-415#Viking_era

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iamalsobrad@reddit

As it happens, the TSR2 was also ordered destroyed when first cancelled I believe?

Yes, all but 2 airframes and a cockpit section were either scrapped or used as targets. The jigs and tooling were also destroyed.

That said, I can't comment on whether this is normal or not. Redundant airframes and jigs take up a lot of space, contain valuable parts or have other useful roles (like being used as targets), so it's entirely possible this is SOP when a project like this is shut down.

The TSR-2's role was quickly filled by ~~the F-111~~ ~~the Mirage IV~~ ~~an updated Buccaneer~~ ~~the AFVG~~ the Buccaneer. The aircraft RAF had originally rejected as 'unsuitable' in order to get the TRS-2 project rolling in the first place.

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flightist@reddit

While I’m sure there’s probably an exception that proves the rule floating around out there, tooling gets scrapped as soon as production ends.

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flightist@reddit

The tooling was (which is pretty standard, it’s got a fair bit of value as scrap and takes up a lot of space) but two airframes survived.

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Corvid187@reddit

Yes the tooling and drawings sadly got scrapped, but I remember reading that initially the airframes were to go to the breaker's yard as well?

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Foreign_Athlete_7693@reddit

I seem to remember hearing about some drawings that somehow survived.....think I saw one once going on eBay for thousands😅

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flightist@reddit

Not sure. Most did, and quickly. Don’t really know the story of the two survivors beyond the one at Cosford being mostly a complete airframe while the one at Duxford was nowhere near finished.

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graphical_molerat@reddit

I don't understand why the Progressive Conservatives under Diefenbaker destroyed our aerospace industry.

With politicians being who they usually are, there will likely have been a nice and substantial cash reward in unmarked currency for the decision makers.

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badgersruse@reddit

Lockheed was done for bribes elsewhere, so that is the most likely answer, very sadly.

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Hot_Journalist1936@reddit

Unlikely,

At the time the Avro Arrow was being developed, Lockheed was developing the A12 Oxcart, which morphed into the SR71---an airframe miles ahead of what the Avro Arrow was. The Avro Arrow was cancelled as ICBMs were the go to weapon of choice, and like the Avro Arrow, the North American F108 Rapier was also cancelled as the interceptor mission changed.

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echo11a@reddit

It's worth remembering that around the time CF-105 was cancelled, Lockheed, in collaboration with Canadair, was pushing for RCAF to adopt a variant of F-104. In fact, Lockheed/Canadair proposal, which became CF-104, was selected mere months after CF-105 was cancelled. The timing seemed a bit too coincidental there....

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swagfarts12@reddit

The CF-105 was going to be at least $12 million a piece BEFORE the RCAF acceptance testing was even finished and that's not considering the cost that it would add to convert it to a nuclear strike aircraft (which was the entire point of the CF-104 purchase). By the time all that was said and done, Canada would be looking at $15 million+ per aircraft compared to the CF-104 that cost about $2 million each. No way would Lockheed even need to bribe them, especially since Canada wanted the F-105 with Canadian engines but even that was too expensive at ~1/3 the Arrow's price. There is no way in hell that the Arrow would even be a possibility for that program in the first place.

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badgersruse@reddit

Both things can be true.

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NeatZebra@reddit

While the airframe was great, they should have done an orderly wrap up with completing engine development and testing. As a weapons system the integration of the entire package, missile, radar, SAGE, airframe, engine was going to be a challenge with a very limited use case.

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Backyard-Builder@reddit

What’s the aluminum death tube?

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puntapuntapunta@reddit

F-104.

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earthforce_1@reddit

I heard that the order to destroy everything likely came from Avro's mercurial CEO, just like when he fired everyone on the spur of the moment when the project was cancelled.

The aircraft had not been delivered to the military so the order did not come from that direction.

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flightist@reddit

Yeah, that’s fiction. The project materials weren’t Avro’s to scrap.

Once the DND determined there wasn’t going to be any further work at all on the project (by about the end of April 1958), all of the materials associated with the project came under the Crown Assets Disposal Corp., which does what the name suggests. The government didn’t want any technical materials falling into enemy hands and didn’t want to be embarrassed by somebody buying a surplus Arrow and making into a road side attraction or something, so the CADC put out a tender for the scrapping work and awarded it to a company from Hamilton.

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Grouchy-Statement750@reddit

I am a conspiracy nut so take the following with a grain of salt:

The Cons cancelled the plane

Canada got the autopac deal.

Canada aerospace engineers moved to the US to design the lunar module in the 60's

Canada started purchasing missles from the US.

Feel free to correct my "facts" or add as you see fit.

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Dark_Magus@reddit

I imagine that's one of the things that would've changed on later models if it had gone into production.

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TheOGStonewall@reddit

“AND ITS LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO”

Idk why but they scream F1 halos

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9999AWC@reddit

10 second penalty for Ocon

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Sim_Flight@reddit

For some reason at first glance I thought this was a n X -Wing fighter.

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geeiamback@reddit

This seams overly complicated. The ladder is high and the pilot still has to step over the cover and then down again? What are the advantages of this design that it justify the hassle getting into the cockpit (compared to rear opening cockpits)?

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tagish156@reddit

You can just barely see it at the end of this video but it looks like the pilot is climbing out over top of the closed rear canopy. Would've been a long way down if you slipped on a wet day.

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DCUStriker9@reddit

Hard to tell, he may have also been standing on both sills.

A strange bit of human factors in a magnificent machine

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badgersruse@reddit

Easier during an ejection? Lighter all in considering ejecting has to be possible?

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

It's likely not lighter: 2x the number of hinges, locks along the top, increased number of seals.

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badgersruse@reddit

I think you’ll find that Canadians of the 1950s liked clubbing baby seals more than having them fly their supersonic fighter bombers, but you do you.

😉

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