Western Standard

The Shotgun Blog

« California Dreamin': Knox's Summer Sojourn To Southern California | Main | The rise of the nanny state »

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Myth of the Arrow

Chris Taylor, aviation nut, neatly dissects the myth of the Avro Arrow:

The Arrow doesn’t lead the pack.  It has good top speed and an acceptable service ceiling, but a thoroughly mediocre radius of action.  Radius of action being the distance an aircraft can travel from its base and return, without refueling (this figure also includes a measly five minutes of combat engagement).  The Arrow would have been the last to achieve IOC—whereas the very similar Convair F-106 had comparable speed, a slightly higher service ceiling, almost twice the radius of action, was available four years earlier, and was several times cheaper ($2 million per F-106 versus $8-10 million per CF-105.)

The F-106, incidentally, remained the backbone of USAF’s interceptor fleet until replaced by the F-15 Eagle.

As Col. Larsen makes clear, the Arrow died because of multiple factors.  The RCAF had already accrued some bad experiences with the Avro-built CF-100, and they didn’t like the support they were getting from the company on that product.  The RCAF’s senior brass very much doubted whether Avro could build an even more complex aircraft and still make it reliable and easy to maintain.

It is difficult for non-Canadians to grasp the power of the Avro Arrow myth. A Canadian built and designed 1950s era jet fighter, it was one of the fastest aircraft of its day. With a top speed of 2.3 Mach, it was certainly a world class fighter. But plenty of other countries turn out world class military and civilian aircrafts, none have acquired the mystique the Arrow has in Canada. The myth of the Arrow has its origins not in the talented crew of engineers and designers who built the CF-105, but deep within the Canadian psyche. 

We are a small country, living next to a very large one. In the 1950s we were also a new ex-colony of Great Britain. Living in the shadow of the English speaking world's two great powers, Canada has struggled to differentiate itself. The Arrow was a remarkable technical accomplishment for so small and so new a country. It suggested that despite our size, we could compete and succeed in the wider world. However, the plane's cancellation, rather than the plane itself, was the real myth making moment. 

While Canadians are proud - in our typically understated way - of their country, they feel it has fallen short of its potential. Famously Wilfred Laurier declared that the twentieth century would belong to Canada. Instead we ended it as a well respected, and well run, middle power. Not very flashy, rather dull but the sort of place you'd want to live in. Like the suburbs with excessive amounts of snow. That good but not brilliant sense of ourselves breed a strange envy (especially toward America) and uncertainly. Human beings need explanations, even bizarre ones. The "fall of the Arrow" became Exhibit A in trying to explain our not quite world class status.

Why the Diefenbaker government cancelled the Arrow project has been source of endless speculation for half a century. Explanations stretch from the conspiratorial - the jealous Americans forced the cancellation - to the contemptuous - our government was too stupid to realize the Arrow's importance - the hum-drum reality has been conveniently ignored. It was a very good plane, just too expensive and impractical for the military needs of the time. The RCAF made a military decision that the project was unfeasible and asked the Cabinet to cancel the project, diverting funds to a more practical, albeit American, plane. 

Looming over the discussions about the Arrow's future, and referred to in some discussions of the fighter's demise, was the widespread prediction that the manned fighter had been made obsolete by the unmanned missiles of the era. It was a grossly premature assessment, but not an absurd one for the time. The logical explanations, however, are not always the believed ones. It is far more comforting to imagine that the Arrow was a victim of that unfathomable force, whatever the preferred explanation, that has held back Canada, rather than to believe it died a bland and sensible bureaucratic death. For the generations of Canadians - including yours truly - that were raised on the Arrow Myth, to question that myth is to question a part of our Canadian childhoods. The questioners should expect no gratitude. 

Posted by Richard Anderson on August 11, 2010 | Permalink

Comments

First, it isn't really fair to compare the Arrow to the F-106 Delta Dart, because the F-106 was a production aircraft from which all the bugs had been worked, whereas the Arrow was still experimental and had yet to enter production when it was cancelled.

Secondly, the Mark II and III Arrows, with the Orenda Iroquois engines, would have been much faster than the Delta Dart's top speed of Mach 2.3 and probably broken the world speed record. The Arrow also had two engines to the Delta Dart's one, considered an important safety factor over Canada's vast unpopulated territory, and have featured on all of Canada's front-line fighters to date. (Interestingly, the new F-35 fighters the Tories are now considering have only a single engine.)

Thirdly, the Wikipedia entry for the Delta Dart includes combat and ferry ranges, whereas for the Arrow, it lists only combat radius. In truth the Mark I Arrow's combat radius was about the same as the Delta Dart's--400-450 statute miles, with 650 miles planned for the Mark II/III. Fuel would have been carried in the vertical stabilizer and wherever else possible.

Fourthly, the Arrow was much larger, and could carry more armament, which was important if you were attacking giant Tu-95 bombers, the Arrow's/Dart's intended prey. Thrust/weight and acceleration were also better on the Arrow, meaning it would reach its targets sooner--important when intercepting enemy planes carrying nuclear bombs.

None of this is to knock on the Delta Dart. It had a well-deserved reputation as a "gentleman's fighter" and enjoyed an enviable safety record, although like the Arrow, it suffered teething problems (much worse than the Arrow's) initially. These kinks were eventually ironed out, and the F-106 went on to serve much longer than most of its 1950s brethren. But it was not superior to the Arrow. The reverse was true.

In truth, the best purpose-built interceptor in history was the F-14 Tomcat of Top Gun fame, which with its Phoenix missile system could strike at targets up to 100 miles away, and with its swinging wings could literally fly rings around either of the older jets (or even many of the newer ones, as today's fighters are not as fast as the older ones were). The F-15 Eagle, incidentally, is an air-superiority fighter, not an interceptor.

It is true that several factors contributed to the Arrow's demise, but technical failures were not among them. Chief among them was a changing of the guard in Ottawa. Diefenbaker, head of the newly elected Tories, was eager to start things off on the right foot, and a $39-million deficit for a country used to seeing $150-million surpluses was politically unacceptable. The CF-105 project had much to do with that overrun, so it was marked from the start.

Furthermore, it is difficult to overestimate the profound impact on the public and military mind that the launch of Sputnik had. With this technological and political tour de force, the Russians had demonstrated that they did not need bombers to destroy their enemies. The era of the manned interceptor was widely presumed to be over, and many advanced designs in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. were cancelled as a result. It was not long before the nations realized their mistake, but while the British and American aviation industries were large enough to recover from this temporary mothballing, Canada's was not.

Canada's Avro plant had one last strike against it, however. For generations it was assumed that Diefenbaker had destroyed the jigs, tooling, assembly line, and six completed Arrows out of sheer spite; however, recently discovered papers in the Soviet Archives in Moscow suggest there was a mole at the factory in 1959, and that the government, knowing this, feared their designs would fall into Russian hands. To prevent this, everything was put to the torch and the plant sold to de Havilland Canada, which eventually become part of Bombardier.

Give it up, Publius. I'm somewhat versed on the subject.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-11 7:05:18 AM

"Give it up, Publius. I'm somewhat versed on the subject."

And arrogant as always Shane.

Posted by: Publius | 2010-08-11 7:50:11 AM

If that is to be the extent of your rebuttal, you may consider your surrender accepted, Publius.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-11 8:11:46 AM

Actually, Shane, when one is Chief of the Air Staff, it is entirely fair to compare the finished-product statistics of the F-106 to the prototype achievements of a largely untested CF-105. That is precisely how and why the Arrow came to be cancelled. Whether it would have been a stellar aircraft in five or ten years is beside the point, because the chiefs wanted a less expensive aircraft with proven capabilities now—not later, and for more money.

All else is dross. Whether the airframe could have carried more armament, whether it's engines would have performed as they did under static test, whether the sensors, fire-control systems and ordnance could be integrated into a smoothly-performing whole is all hearsay.

The plane only completed five percent of its planned flight tests. The airframe never flew with it's intended engines; its intended fire control system was scrapped by the manufacturer and a substitute was selected—but also never fitted.

How people can make grandiose claims for an aircraft that had a grand total of 71 flight hours is beyond me.

It cost four times what a competing (and already completed!) airframe cost, and in just four years the CF-105 program cost shot up from $261m to $400m. And, again, racked up only 71 flight hours to show for it. That in itself is sufficient to understand why the RCAF was not interested in proceeding further.

As far as technical failures go, perhaps you might consider looking into maintenance issues, such as access to control surface actuators. There were hundreds of fasteners that had to be removed to access them, and the fasteners themselves were not interchangeable per airframe! If a component had to be swapped from another Arrow prototype and the fastener did not fit, then the hole had to be drilled out larger, and a newer oversize fastener installed.

This is why, from 1956 onward, RCAF was complaining to Avro about maintainability issues. Avro's solution was to increase inspection intervals rather than redesign and standardise components across all of the prototypes. Also another excellent reason to dump the airframe.

Why don't you ask maintainers for today's Cormorant how much they love it when there's a clear design flaw in a component but the manufacturer isn't responsive.

Posted by: Chris Taylor | 2010-08-11 11:09:18 AM

Interesting post. I remember watching the (CBC?) made-for-television movie several years ago and wondering what the real story was minus the drama and feel-good Can-con effect.

Posted by: John Chittick | 2010-08-11 11:42:16 AM

John, that CBC mockumentary was a disgrace on the level of The Shattered City. Practically nothing in it was true. They even depicted the engineers as on the merge of having a workable lunar vehicle, with a suspiciously accurate model of the Lunar excursion module from the Apollo program being taken from the offices during the closing of the factory. It's true that many of the people working at the Avro plant in Malton in 1959 went on to help put a man on the Moon, but they certainly weren't on the verge of doing it independently. It is also not true that the Americans engineered the Arrow's demise.

This must by why we don't really have a Canadian equivalent of Michael Moore. Our national broadcasting company provides the same degree of chicanery and falsehood without having to put up with a fat gross rogue fellating a microphone.

The truth is the Arrow was a plane without equal for its day, but the F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle, both designed just 10 years later, would have trounced it for two reasons: more powerful engines and more advanced wing geometry.

The delta wing is good for supersonic flight and was the easiest to make using 1950s technology, but trades manoeuvrability for straight-line performance (acceptable in an interceptor but NOT in a fighter). The F-14 Tomcat used swinging wings in an attempt to get the best of both worlds; it worked, but at the expense of cost and complexity. Suitably designed monowings with main bodies that produce their own lift, like those on the F-15 Eagle, are now preferred.

Also, today's afterburning turbofans are much more powerful than the Arrow's afterburning turbojets, and it is questionable whether it could have been modified to accept them, as the new engines, with their cold-air bypasses, are much fatter.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-11 12:16:46 PM

    Actually, Shane, when one is Chief of the Air Staff, it is entirely fair to compare the finished-product statistics of the F-106 to the prototype achievements of a largely untested CF-105.

No, it isn’t. An unbalanced comparison doesn’t become a balanced one just because the comparer holds a lofty rank. Furthermore, the CAS was a bureaucrat, not an engineer, and therefore a political tool. I’ll take the testimony of the people who actually built and flew the aircraft, thank you.

    That is precisely how and why the Arrow came to be cancelled. Whether it would have been a stellar aircraft in five or ten years is beside the point, because the chiefs wanted a less expensive aircraft with proven capabilities now—not later, and for more money.

Yet it was those same chiefs who insisted on bundling the advanced ASTRA fire-control system together with development of the CF-105. That’s called concurrent development, and it greatly complicates the process. Developing a new aircraft is expensive, and it is questionable whether the RCAF would have been a large enough market to justify the expense. That doesn’t mean the aircraft was a lemon, as you imply. In fact, compared to the troubled development of the F-102 (which included having to completely demolish and reassemble the original assembly line), the Arrow’s development went pretty damned smoothly.

    Whether the airframe could have carried more armament, whether it's engines would have performed as they did under static test, whether the sensors, fire-control systems and ordnance could be integrated into a smoothly-performing whole is all hearsay.

Which is precisely why it’s inappropriate to compare the final version of a production aircraft with a prototype. Gotcha.

    The plane only completed five percent of its planned flight tests. The airframe never flew with it's intended engines; its intended fire control system was scrapped by the manufacturer and a substitute was selected—but also never fitted.

Yet even with its intended engines (the same P&W J75 as used in the Delta Dart, by the way), its performance topped the F-106. The first version of the Dart had such grievous acceleration problems that it took nearly seven minutes to make Mach 1.8, making speeds above Mach 1.7 not tactically usable. The Arrow, which only flew two years later, made Mach 1.96. In a climb. With excess of thrust available.

    How people can make grandiose claims for an aircraft that had a grand total of 71 flight hours is beyond me.

By looking at the actual numbers from those flights instead of trying to manufacturing reasonable doubt like a cheap shyster so one can justify something politically. That’s how.

    It cost four times what a competing (and already completed!) airframe cost, and in just four years the CF-105 program cost shot up from $261m to $400m. And, again, racked up only 71 flight hours to show for it. That in itself is sufficient to understand why the RCAF was not interested in proceeding further.

No, it isn’t, because in 1958 the Delta Dart, after two years in development, was still not the equal of the Arrow, and Avro development was pretty efficient compared to America’s. Avro built its assembly line first, and built its prototypes using finished tooling. That was an unheard-of economy in those days. Yet the engineering was so spot-on that the centre of gravity was within 0.67% of the estimated position. By contrast, the F-102 attempted the same exercise and it was a fiasco. The first prototypes wouldn’t break the sound barrier at all. The whole assembly line had to be scrapped and built from scratch. The per capita cost of developing the Arrow was high, because we had one-tenth the population and, likely, one-tenth the market size.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you’re seeing here is called junk politics. It’s similar to junk science, and just as sleazy. A fast talker comes up with impressive-sounding numbers designed to bamboozle the uninitiated. If you look fast, it looks convincing. It takes time for the genuine article to catch up to this kind of intellectual cockroach and crush it. But by that time, the trickster hopes to have already made his killing.

    As far as technical failures go, perhaps you might consider looking into maintenance issues, such as access to control surface actuators. There were hundreds of fasteners that had to be removed to access them, and the fasteners themselves were not interchangeable per airframe! If a component had to be swapped from another Arrow prototype and the fastener did not fit, then the hole had to be drilled out larger, and a newer oversize fastener installed.

That sounds highly suspicious to me, as the Arrow prototypes were all created on an assembly line and not built by hand. Moreover, the Arrow was designed to be easy to service. Any photo of the Arrow’s underbelly will show the numerous access hatches that were designed to facilitate ease of maintenance. Changing an engine was especially easy, and the Iroquois engine itself was noted for its simplicity.

    This is why, from 1956 onward, RCAF was complaining to Avro about maintainability issues. Avro's solution was to increase inspection intervals rather than redesign and standardise components across all of the prototypes. Also another excellent reason to dump the airframe.

See above, Chris. This aircraft was built on an assembly line. I have never heard the Arrow’s maintainability criticized, and I’ve studied the subject broadly. Dropping an impressive-sounding number and standing there scowling with your hands on your hips may be dramatic, but it doesn’t prove a thing. It can take over a hundred fasteners to change the windshield on some planes. For all we know this is typical, and you’ve done nothing to prove it isn’t.

    Why don't you ask maintainers for today's Cormorant how much they love it when there's a clear design flaw in a component but the manufacturer isn't responsive.

I’d be more likely to ask them if they’d prefer the Sea Kings and Labradors back. Also, that’s not really comparable, because the Avro plant was located right here in Canada and securing replacement parts would not likely have been the problem it is with a European-built helicopter.

Was the Arrow perfect? No. As I’ve already admitted, it was already outclassed ten years later. But it was never given the chance to develop properly, and when it went, much of our advanced aviation industry went with it. That is why its story is so poignant and its allure so enduring. I imagine it’ll still be a solidly entrenched part of Canadiana long after Taylor Empire Airways closes shop.

Some advice, Chris: Don't confront thinkers. Judging from the above, you either aren’t one, or aren’t used to dealing with them.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-11 1:07:12 PM

"The truth is the Arrow was a plane without equal for its day..."

This is what I mean about the myth being hard to kill. Here we have someone extolling the virtues of a weapon system that:

All these things the Arrow might have been are entirely theoretical. One may as well be discussing the combat performance of MechaGodzilla. But in the realm of actual every-day fact, a weapon system that got so expensive it never had any actual weapons and sensors installed might be considered a failure. In the realm of the everyday real.

We don't know if the avionics would have worked as designed when integrated with the engine and airframe. We don't know if the airframe might have required specific revisions or redesigns to ameliorate integration issues, greater-than-expected wear and tear on structural members, the landing gear, control surfaces, hydraulics, etc.

You can't tell any of that after only 71 hours testing on a mostly empty airframe carrying only a pilot and fuel.

What you're dealing in is mythology, not fact.

Posted by: Chris Taylor | 2010-08-11 1:54:17 PM

Shane, the F-102/6 program was not without its faults during the prototype and development stages; as you doubtless know this is why USAF cut its initial order drastically.

You neglect to note that the F-106 acceleration issues were largely due to drag we can now attribute to the Whitcomb area rule. The CF-105 also had similar design issues; NACA gave Avro a free gift by pointing out that "proper application of the area rule" was required for the CF-105's desired performance.

You are wonderfully gifted in throwing out ad-hominems but I see little compelling data. By all means take the word of the men who flew it; I'd rather take the word of the men who evaluated it for RCAF and found it wanting. They, after all, were the ones charged with determining whether it was fit for Canadian servicemen to fly.

You seem invested in your point of view, which, from my perspective, lacks data to buttress it. Adding insults to the mix merely tells me you lack the finesse to converse with adults civilly. We will have to agree to disagree on this subject.

Posted by: Chris Taylor | 2010-08-11 2:10:36 PM

Chris, you accuse others of conjecture when in fact that's all you have. Of course the plane never completed its development; it flew for less than a year before it was cancelled. However, surviving records indicate that the Arrow was not a lemon. The Delta Dart you would hold up as the Arrow's superior went through a much longer and more difficult teething process and even after 40 years of service was still inferior to the Mark II Arrow, whose maiden flight was only two weeks away when the project was cancelled.

You cannot declare a plane only a few months into flight testing to be categorically inferior to one that flew for forty years and was continuously upgraded in that time. Especially when the Arrow's development was smoother and it accomplished more in a shorter frame of time, if not first. You keep repeating the same cherry-picked nagging points without actually proving anything. And I note you never addressed a single one of my points. Now, just for the sake of courtesy, I will address yours:

    never completed its flight testing

Duh! CANCELLED. Two weeks before a flight expected to set a new world speed record, I might add.

    never had search/targeting radar and avionics installed

Irrelevant. Those are manufactured by independent companies and you can pick any model you like, provided it fits. You might as well complain about the tires, the drag chute, or the runway.

    never had actual weapons installed

See radar and avionics.

    wasn't the fastest in its class (CF-105 top instrumented test speed Mach 1.96 [pilot reported it as m1.98]; F-106 top tested speed Mach 2.3)

The flight was intentionally terminated at that speed with excess thrust available. In a climb. The Delta Dart was not flying that fast in 1956, I’ll tell you that.

    wasn't the longest-ranged in its class (CF-105 ferry range est. 1,254nm per CAE memo 17 Jan 1958; F-106 ferry range 2,300nm)

Additional fuel tanks were to be added to the fin to address this.

    didn't have the best service ceiling (CF-105 top tested ceiling 50,000ft [56,000ft top estimated ceiling]; Saab 35 Draken 65,600ft)

Not an issue, since the service ceiling of the TU-95 Bear is only 45,000 feet; it is a prop job after all. Even the B-52 Stratofortress tops out at 50,000. So unless you’re chasing ICBMs or satellites, that extra altitude is wasted. Remember, the Arrow was an interceptor, not a fighter.

    was expensive as hell relative to others in its class; the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Foulkes, agreed that it did not make any sense to produce an $8,000,000 interceptor in Canada when one could be obtained in the U.S. for $2,000,000

Your one point that contains some truth. The Arrow may in fact have not made economic sense for Canada, and this was likely the primary reason for its cancellation. That does not mean it was inferior to the Delta Dart, which it wasn’t, and which you said it was. Moreover, the F-106 was developed from the troubled F-102, so those development costs should be rolled together.

These are nagging points, and that’s all they are. Again, the data are incomplete, because the Arrow did not finish development. But what was finished demonstrated greater promise than the Delta Dart and Delta Dagger over a much shorter time span. You have no proof that the Arrow was a lemon, but are apparently quite comfortable to say so on the strength of a comparison between an extremely promising year-old experimental aircraft and a model that went through forty years of development and upgrades, choosing the latest (and best) model for the comparison. By the way, the F-106 acceleration issues were rectified with changing the intake configuration and charging injectors.

The fact is that both the Delta Dart and the Arrow more than met the requirements laid out by the RCAF. So perhaps you can tell us why they chose neither and went with the Voodoo, which was inferior to both?

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-11 3:18:38 PM

"We are a small country, living next to a very large one."

If "we" == "Canada", this sentence reverses the facts of geography.

Posted by: Frank Ch. EIgler | 2010-08-12 1:18:27 PM

    If "we" == "Canada", this sentence reverses the facts of geography.

But not of population, gross domestic product, and military might.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-12 1:55:37 PM

I've read these arguments before, gentlemen. I wrote a musical based on the Arrow - The Flying Avro Arrow Musical Comedy. We had a ten day run at the Toronto Fringe Festival this past July. Check out the website. The play examined the issues, the cold war environment and featured a cast of eleven, with a singing Diefenbaker, Eisenhower and Khrushchev. The son of the Avro President, Crawford Gordon, came out to see it. Also the manager of the motion picture department at Avro, Lou Wise, who produced Supersonic Sentinel. The designer of the Canadian flag, Don Watt was set to design our poster but sadly he passed away this past December, 2009. We worked on the cockpit design. Everything I've read leads me to believe it was a gem. A flawed gem, but an awesome gem. The replica at Downsview Museum in Toronto is a must see. Too bad it will never fly. The Arrow can only fly in a musical.

Posted by: DOUG | 2010-08-14 10:17:52 PM

"singing Diefenbaker, Eisenhower and Khrushchev."

If that isn't a hook, I don't know what is! Good luck to you, sir!

Posted by: Publius | 2010-08-15 6:06:27 AM

This is one of the better articles on the subject but it still contains a few errors.

The price of an Arrow was $10 million at cancellation and this didn't become $8 million until afterwards. The F-106 cost about $3.75 million and it was the F-101 that cost about $2 million.

The Arrow's (1 and 2) top speed was limited to mach 1.9 due to skin heating. The aircraft had excessive drag because Avro chose to leave the fuselage sides straight. [The Douglas Stiletto and Bristol 188 had similar problems with shape.] There were discussions about a third type of Arrow but it would have been limited to about mach 1.5. The engines were to be optimized for a lower speed in order to reduce fuel consumption and increase the range.

All records indicate that the Chiefs of Staff based their recommendations on cost and capabilities of the various aircraft under consideration. They were not idiots for failing to test the aircraft properly nor were they traitors for conspiring with the Americans to kill the program. They did their duty and I am proud of them for that because $2 billion must have brought with it a lot of political pressure.

At the time all parties; the Government, the Opposition Liberals, the Chiefs of Staff, NAE, and DRB were agreed that the program should be cancelled.

There really wasn't anything to argue about.

Posted by: Murray B | 2010-09-25 12:50:52 PM

There is one thing, Murray. Why the Voodoo and not the Phantom?

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-09-25 6:33:41 PM

There are some good reasons for the Voodoo versus the Phantom. First of all the Phantom [actually Phantom II] was so popular that it was backordered until 1969. If the Arrow had been cancelled earlier there might have been some possibility of co-developing a Phantom interceptor but the decision came too late. The need for interceptors was critical and the low-hours Voodoo interceptors were made available to us.

Many people in the U.S. military were annoyed at the decision because their Voodoos were taken away and they were given Delta Daggers instead.

That was like taking an M-14 away from an infantryman and giving them a little plastic varmint rifle instead. Most didn't like it but they had all been given a large cup of STFU and did not say much about it.

Posted by: Murray B | 2010-10-02 12:41:29 PM


The comments to this entry are closed.