The Avro Canada CF-105 had a really weird way to open the cockpit

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Vairman@reddit

First of all, NEVER say anything non-complimentary about the Arrow, all of Canada will come after you if you do. Second of all, that really IS weird. I wonder why they thought they needed that?

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I’m Canadian. Reading into it slightly deeper than the patriotic “Heritage Moments” you quickly realize it wasn’t that advanced (Compared to the F-106 or even F-4 for example, every fighter of that era was said to be “ahead of its time” due to rapid technological advances post-war), it wasn’t close to being a production aircraft, and it is absolutely true that manned interceptors were not the future…

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Vairman@reddit

super advanced or not, she was a good looking bird.

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

What do you mean? A 50s era fighter jet is totally the peak of aviation and there was nothing wrong with it whatsoever...

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Vairman@reddit

it was rather attractive, I'll give it that!

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Alpha_Grey_Wolf@reddit

It was awkward as all get out, but with the Arrow projected to be able to hit Mach 3 with more powerful engines and some refinement, they probably felt that the windshield and canopy shape were going to be required to meet that goal with the materials available at the time. The SR-71 Blackbird has a very similar windshield and canopy shape, I'd suspect for the same reason, the speeds the aircraft could attain. Mind you the Blackbird's canopy is one piece, not two and opens conventionally.

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Thermodynamicist@reddit

the Arrow projected to be able to hit Mach 3

Highly unlikely. It was made of aluminium.

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quietflyr@reddit

Yeah, they had plans for a titanium Arrow Mk.III, but it was nowhere further than the drawing board. I think they were projecting that, with some propulsion changes and structural changes, the basic design was capable (aerodynamically) of M3.0.

It may have been entirely feasible, or it may have been completely impractical. We'll never know for sure.

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Thermodynamicist@reddit

Aerodynamically, Mach 3 is fairly easy. The main problems are thermodynamic. The Arrow was a somewhat marginal Mach 2 aeroplane, and would have needed a lot of intake development work to go much faster.

Had it gone to Mach 3 for any length of time, everything would have needed to be re-engineered to handle the temperatures. A-12 / F-12 demonstrate the sort of programme which would have been needed. Nothing about it is easy, but above all everything is expensive because all the flow rigs need huge amounts of power to deliver representative levels of specific enthalpy.

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quietflyr@reddit

Oh, I'm well aware. And chances are, it wasn't supposed to cruise at M3.0, probably a dash speed. Like a MiG-25, but with more durable engines.

Also, it's not really fair to call it a marginal M2.0 airplane. In testing, it reached M1.92 with the J75 engines. The Iroquois had around 25% more thrust, and were notably lighter.

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Thermodynamicist@reddit

Sure but there's more to life than static thrust. The Canadians released a load of technical data quite recently, and I was surprised by the gap between the performance predictions and the propaganda.

Arrow II had a limiting dive speed of 700 KEAS or Mach 2, or a skin temperature of 250 ºF, i.e. 394 K.

See page 65 of https://nrc-digital-repository.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=04988ad4-9a47-4f9d-af81-8901c3a3ffb7

The temperature ratio at Mach 2 is 1.8 and therefore the aircraft would be temperature limited for OAT of 219 K, so basically ISA + 2.24 K in the stratosphere. That's pretty marginal IMO.

Could they have done better? Perhaps. Concorde was designed for 400 K, which meant it could hit Mach 2 at ISA + 5.6 K, which was a bit better; the design case was ISA + 5 K.

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

They wouldn't hit Mach 3 with the Arrow until the on paper MkIII. They cancelled it just before the MkII could take flight. I feel like that is overly ambitious. Not knocking my northern neighbors, but even if the Arrow was adopted, I'd doubt it would rival the SR-71 except in short bursts like the Foxbat.

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LordofSpheres@reddit

The whole "Mach 3 Arrow" thing was based off of the idea that the Iroquois could be updated to make 40,000 lbf of thrust - which, I think it's worth noting, would put it ahead of the PW F119 in the fucking F-22. Allegedly Iroquois were tested to 28k lbf of thrust but I've never seen any sort of proof, and they certainly wouldn't have been reliable at that power level. Like so much else surrounding the Arrow, I just don't quite buy it.

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

I hate that the Arrow was cancelled, but the mythos around it does grind some gears. No Canada, you wouldn't have men on the Moon first even if the Arrow was adopted. And an "updated" Arrow would be complete bait in modern warfare.

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no_hostages@reddit

As a proud Canadian who loves the Arrow and is in tears over the decay of our domestic aerospace industry, I can't help but feel that the 'Legend of the Arrow' wouldn't be half as compelling if we didn't destroy the project materials so completely. That the biggest piece you can find is a section of stabilizer in a museum just adds to the mystique of an all Canadian super plane. If we'd kept even a single airframe I highly doubt people would care about the project decades after it became totally technologically and strategically obsolete.

At the same time, if ever the DND gets high enough to start a new domestic fighter program, it had better be called the Arrow II or something

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Vairman@reddit

>The SR-71 Blackbird has a very similar windshield and canopy shape

similar shape, but NOT similar function. The SR-71 canopies have hinges at the back, like normal people would use. This Arrow canopy strikes me as being different for different's sake. "Think outside the box". Sometime the box is what it is for a good reason.

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Mobryan71@reddit

Different use cases, though.

I can see the advantages here for high speed ejections, which are much more likely in an Arrow than the Blackbird, and likely much more survivable.

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Vairman@reddit

There were 12 instances of ejections from an SR-71 and nearly all survived. One died because of a failure/flaw of the ejection system and one drowned after ejecting. So proven to be survivable. No need for "likely' here.

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Mobryan71@reddit

How many live ejections from the Arrow?

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Vairman@reddit

none that I'm aware of. So no proof of survivability there. But I'm sure it would have been fine. Ish.

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Mobryan71@reddit

So... Likely.

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

Zero. It didn't fly enough to have a major malfunction in flight. If I recall correctly, the only issues were on takeoff and landing. I think one prototype had the landing gear collapse but no ejections

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quietflyr@reddit

I know an engineer that worked at Avro in the late 50s. He told me he had drawn up a bubble canopy for the Arrow. His boss came by and saw it on his desk, picked it up, tore it to shreds and threw it in the garbage, then told him "we spent so much time and effort convincing the RCAF they needed this canopy, we're not changing it!".

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

I'm no expert, but I think that a bubble canopy would be quicker to climb into over this clamshell design if you need to in a hurry lol.

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dv666@reddit

Yes but bubble canopies weren't strong enough to withstand supersonic speeds. Which is why this canopy is the way it was. Look at the Delta Dagger and Delta Dart for similar examples.

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quietflyr@reddit

Yes but bubble canopies weren't strong enough to withstand supersonic speeds

The F-100, F-101, F-104, F-105, Mirage III, Lightning, F-4, F-8, MiG-21, and others disagree.

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lordhavepercy99@reddit

Might be more to do with the whole mach 3 thing than just supersonic

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Vairman@reddit

F-102 and F-106 both did NOT have this split canopy thingy. It's very odd.

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

I meant bubble more like other period fighters vs a P-51 or F-16. Not in clamshell

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syringistic@reddit

This seems like such and awkward design. So how would you get in? A ladder up to the opening between the front and the side half... and then do a 180 into the seat?

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Kevlaars@reddit

I know the CBC miniseries is sometimes controversial here on Reddit, but i think there is a shot or two that show how the pilot got into (using a mockup).

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Attackpilsung@reddit

@ time 1:30:15

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sirguinneshad@reddit (OP)

That's my best guess, in a hurry, jump into the seat and hope you don't hit anything.

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syringistic@reddit

Yeah in a hurry, the pilots balls are definitely hitting something lol.

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wolftick@reddit

Looks like it would work quite well when you need to get out in a real hurry though (i.e. ejecting).

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DarkTeaTimes@reddit

Locking mechanism lever on the RHS.

Eject, eject...hold on, Helmet safely on, check. Lean left to avoid brain embolism in the shape of a hammer perforating my brain. Check. OK let's go.

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