Rescue planned to recover sunken Avro Arrow models from Lake Ontario

[CanaBull]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/avro-arrow-recovery-lake-ontario-1.4207116

I'm an unashamed aviation anorak.  If it flies it has my attention.  Doesn't matter if it's one of those nutters running off a cliff hanging onto a failed frame tent, to the guys skipping the edge of the atmosphere at mach 6.  From two-stroke petrol engines to scramjets.  I get all wing shapes and powerplants, avionics suites and armaments, communications and countermeasures.  So much so I ended up making sizable pieces for many different planes.

The doomed Avro Arrow is special aircraft for many reasons.  The fact that it was decades ahead of its time, that it suffered so ugly a fate when the program was cancelled and that virtually everything to do with it was destroyed, from the aircraft themselves to the spare parts to the drawings.  From the thousands put out of work one Friday afternoon ending up putting a man on the moon ten years later.  Finding these smaller scale models they used to do the aerodynamic testing with would amount to being the few remaining physical ties to that time.

There are many parallels with the TSR2, and it's important that the imagination and skills of these people to put together such things from the drawing board to reality are remembered.  

[Bedford Roughyed]

18 minutes ago, CanaBull said:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/avro-arrow-recovery-lake-ontario-1.4207116

I'm an unashamed aviation anorak.  If it flies it has my attention.  Doesn't matter if it's one of those nutters running off a cliff hanging onto a failed frame tent, to the guys skipping the edge of the atmosphere at mach 6.  From two-stroke petrol engines to scramjets.  I get all wing shapes and powerplants, avionics suites and armaments, communications and countermeasures.  So much so I ended up making sizable pieces for many different planes.

The doomed Avro Arrow is special aircraft for many reasons.  The fact that it was decades ahead of its time, that it suffered so ugly a fate when the program was cancelled and that virtually everything to do with it was destroyed, from the aircraft themselves to the spare parts to the drawings.  From the thousands put out of work one Friday afternoon ending up putting a man on the moon ten years later.  Finding these smaller scale models they used to do the aerodynamic testing with would amount to being the few remaining physical ties to that time.

There are many parallels with the TSR2, and it's important that the imagination and skills of these people to put together such things from the drawing board to reality are remembered.  

Especially on the political side and the desire to buy american.

[Futtocks]

Was it ever disclosed why the programme was so suddenly and completely halted?

[CanaBull]

Not fully no, and I don't think we'll see anything else disclosed for another 40 years or so.  Like a lot of programmes at the time they were pressured from those within the establishment that missiles were the answer rather than more expensive interceptors, even within the US, let alone Canada which had significantly less money to spend on a program already overbudget with untested engines.  Diefenbaker had already committed to Bomarc missiles and used that as the reason to determine the Arrow as unnecessary.

I'm not sure the political chicanery will ever fully come out.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that an aircraft and powerplant at least 15- 20 years ahead of what the US had at the time was a target of political destruction to mine the human resources.  The fact that NASA's Space Task Group snapped the engineers and designers so quickly in the manned space program could be symptomatic of that.  It's not unusual to buy out competition after all.

There's some evidence that Avro had been penetrated by a Russian mole, this being the main official justification for the complete destruction of the aircraft and its tooling.

Canada ended up with the McDonnell CF-101 Voodoo anyway, an inferior design initially rejected in preference to the Arrow, and flew that in the interception role until adoption of the CF-18 in the 1980's.

The rumour still persists that one was flown to the north and kept in secret.

 

[CanaBull]

@Bedford Roughyed This is probably one of the coolest trips through the countryside, the TSR-2 replacement Buccaneer, not as fast but 500 mph at 100ft is fast enough.

 

[Tongs ya bas]

9 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Was it ever disclosed why the programme was so suddenly and completely halted?

the americans. the Avro Arrow was a wonder of the world to this eight year old; and then it was no more

[Robin Evans]

8 hours ago, CanaBull said:

@Bedford Roughyed This is probably one of the coolest trips through the countryside, the TSR-2 replacement Buccaneer, not as fast but 500 mph at 100ft is fast enough.

 

Ah the TSR-2..... if only

[Tongs ya bas]

32 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

Ah the TSR-2..... if only

not really robin. it wasn't what was needed. beautiful aircraft though. 

The buccaneer was a naval aircraft, but its adaptation into a land based strike plane was a masterstroke if an accidental one., and much better than buying f111s which was the original idea for a replacement.

[Robin Evans]

But we then used the jag for land strike and still bought the phantom.

Yes.... it was a marvellous design

[Robin Evans]

What do you consider to be the best designed/Best looking aircraft?

I thought both the vintage pair were marvellous but the Vulcan is just a magnificent looking aircraft.

The old JP is an almost iconic training aircraft

[Tongs ya bas]

4 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

But we then used the jag for land strike and still bought the phantom.

Yes.... it was a marvellous design

i wouldn't put the phantom or the jaguar in the same category as the TSR2. the jaguar was a joint venture light strike aircraft, and the phantom was primarily a naval interceptor that the raf also bought, later incorporating the naval aircraft into their inventory. the governments insistence on british engines for the phantom incurred massive cost over runs and delays.

[Tongs ya bas]

4 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

What do you consider to be the best designed/Best looking aircraft?

I thought both the vintage pair were marvellous but the Vulcan is just a magnificent looking aircraft.

The old JP is an almost iconic training aircraft

jet fighter: the hawker hunter

prop fighter: the hawker sea fury

strategic bomber: the vulcan, and certainly the most menacing. they regularly flew over fev in formation and never failed to give me the horrors.

[Futtocks]

Going by looks only, the Sukhoi 47 is definitely a funky-looking thing.

[CanaBull]

The Miles M39 Libellula has to be one of the funniest:

[CanaBull]

For me, best designed have to be the Spitfire, though the Fw190 runs it close.

In terms of bombers it would be the Vulcan, though I've always loved the XB-70 Valkyrie for sheer menace.

[Tongs ya bas]

15 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Going by looks only, the Sukhoi 47 is definitely a funky-looking thing.

The Germans were experimenting with this configuration towards the end of world war two

[Tongs ya bas]

6 minutes ago, CanaBull said:

The Miles M39 Libellula has to be one of the funniest:

Boulton Paul were on the verge of bringing into production a very similar ground attack aircraft when the war ended

[CanaBull]

Getting back to the Arrow, I was fortunate to get to Canada early enough to be able to make several trips to the Toronto Air and Space Museum before it had to close its doors.  This was a small museum based at the old DeHavilland plant (and former RCAF base) at Downsview.

They had a full sized replica of the Arrow with some spare instrumentation and a couple of landing gear components which escaped destruction, if memory serves.  The museum closed several years ago and, funnily enough, the main buildings are now used as a 5-a-side football and touch rugby centre called The Hangar.  Few people realise the significance of where they are, being in the very spot where hundreds of Mosquitos rolled off the production line.  Now all the exhibits, including a Lancaster X from a plinth in Port Credit which was undergoing restoration, are in storage containers at Pearson Airport waiting for the museum to find another home.

The highlight of the museum for me though was meeting who I thought was simply a volunteer when I first saw him on our first visit, but then subsequently had his own spot by the Lancaster where he sold his wartime memoir, “Ghosts of Targets Past”.  His name was Philip Gray, a softly spoken Scotsman and Bomber Command veteran who piloted his Lancaster ‘Lady Luck’ on 16 sorties over Germany.  My young son and I often talked with him and he was kind enough to sign a copy of his book to my lad.  Sadly, he passed away in 2013.

The nose section of Arrow RL206 is at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, along with one of the Iroquois engines.  There is another Iroquois engine at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, where the only other flying Lancaster is also based.

[Tongs ya bas]

5 hours ago, CanaBull said:

For me, best designed have to be the Spitfire, though the Fw190 runs it close.

In terms of bombers it would be the Vulcan, though I've always loved the XB-70 Valkyrie for sheer menace.

The thing about the spitfire was that it went through so many versions that the last model had little in common with the first and bore only a passing resemblance to it.

The naval version: the Seafire caused more deaths by accidents than the enemy and was notoriously unreliable. 

It was also a complex aircraft to manufacture using many more man hours than say it's superior, the mustang, and indeed the fw190

[Bedford Roughyed]

The P-51 is one of my favourites.  The whole story behind it, the speed of design, the merging with the Merlin engine, etc.  

 

[CanaBull]

35 minutes ago, Tongs ya bas said:

The thing about the spitfire was that it went through so many versions that the last model had little in common with the first and bore only a passing resemblance to it.

The naval version: the Seafire caused more deaths by accidents than the enemy and was notoriously unreliable. 

It was also a complex aircraft to manufacture using many more man hours than say it's superior, the mustang, and indeed the fw190

Whilst I fully appreciate all those well made points, I will studiously avoid them by noting nothing else looks as good

I actually have a softer spot for the Hurricane and the Typhoon/Tempest.  Pretty much anything Sydney Camm had a hand in really; a remarkable man who should be more widely known.

[Tongs ya bas]

35 minutes ago, CanaBull said:

Whilst I fully appreciate all those well made points, I will studiously avoid them by noting nothing else looks as good

I actually have a softer spot for the Hurricane and the Typhoon/Tempest.  Pretty much anything Sydney Camm had a hand in really; a remarkable man who should be more widely known.

i agree with you about the typhoon and the tempest and the sea fury that followed it. to me the sea fury was easily as beautiful as the spitfire.

[CanaBull]

Picked up this recent picture book at a local antique store this past weekend.  $15 book for $8. Some unseen photos in there, pretty good find.

[CanaBull]

Contemporary coverage

[CanaBull]

Assembly