Picture of the day

Brookwood said:
The nose sections of both the Arrow (#206) and the Jetliner are on display at the aviation museum in Ottawa. You can clearly see the torch marks where they were hacked off from the fuselage. Such a waste.

My best friend in highschool and I both were accepted at Carleton University for Aerospace Engineering. I decided spending the rest of my career in committee meetings designing landing gear for Boeing in Winnipeg wasn't that appealing so I went off to greener pastures. My friend however stuck with it and got his Ph.D.. .....And then he tried to find a job in Canada as an Aerospace Engineer. A fully bilingual one at that too.

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. From coast to coast, a stone cold dead industry in Canada.

Guess who was more than happy to give him multiple job offers? You got it, our friends to the South. And that's where he is today, plying his trade. He really wanted to stay here and contribute to Canada's success, but in the end he just had to go where the work was.

So here we are, all these years later, the continuing legacy of the Avro Arrow saga.

Brookwood


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Those are even sadder than looking at the old pictures of the aircraft graveyards after the war. Yeash, what a waste
 
My uncle was one of the few intrepid souls who hid the nose section in the 'Institute of Aviation Medicine' soon after they were vandalized. He retired years later as a LtCol.

We then bought Voodoos and Starfighters, "Freedon Fighters" and Hornets. All from our buddies down South. Now let's fast forward to the F-35 and the latest "Dog&Pony" show.

"Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."
Abraham Lincoln

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana
 
Brookwood said:
Well, hope springs eternal.....maybe #202 really DID get away.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/avro-arrow-mystery-deepens-with-u-k-discovery-1.741854

Here's more info with pics -

http://www.jetartaviation.co.uk/2011/12/avro-arrow-cf-105-ejection-seat-found-in-uk/

Brookwood
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Or was it just a case of an enterprising scrap dealer who sold the seats and who knows what else to someone in the UK? Maybe he sold them back to Martin Baker themselves? Maybe someone stopped by the scrap yard and picked up an Orenda Iroquois engine or two?

Anyway, what articles don't mention is that if an Iroquois engined Arrow was saved, it left Canada in 1959, not some time in the 1960s. So where was it between the time it left and the time it was supposedly burned?

And if if you think the Jetliner info was shocking, take a read through this if you want to get know how far ahead the plane was and the BS that went on to get rid of it! ht tp://www.avroarrow.org/Cancellation.htm
 
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So instead of the Arrow, we got the less-than-perfect BOMARC:

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It wasn't all bad news. It sure kept a bunch of folks working in Seattle.

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And it kept good company.

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We bought a bunch, mounted them in vulnerable, fixed facilities, and then, after eleven years of inertia, sent them to the museums. Thus ended Canada's experiment with anti-air lawn darts.
 
Dark Alley Dan said:
Thus ended Canada's experiment with nuclear-armed anti-air lawn darts.
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I fixed it for you.

I find it interesting almost nobody knows the CAF fielded nuclear weapons for a short period of our history.

From 1963 through 1984, Canada deployed four American designed nuclear weapons topped with hundreds of US-controlled warheads:

- 56 CIM-10 BOMARC surface-to-air missiles.
- 4 MGR-1 Honest John rocket systems armed with a total of 16 W31 nuclear warheads the Canadian Army deployed in Germany.
- 108 nuclear W25 Genie rockets carried by 54 CF-101 Voodoos.
- somewhere between 90 and 210 tactical (20–60 kiloton) nuclear warheads assigned to 6 CF-104 Starfighter squadrons based with NATO in Europe.

Then in the last year of PET's stint as PM, someone thought up the idea of jettisoning Canada's proud warrior tradition and the nukes were expelled from the Canadian inventory in exchange for a new narrative of blue berets and sh!tty ROEs.
 
Claven2 said:
I fixed it for you.

I find it interesting almost nobody knows the CAF fielded nuclear weapons for a short period of our history.

From 1963 through 1984, Canada deployed four American designed nuclear weapons topped with hundreds of US-controlled warheads:

- 56 CIM-10 BOMARC surface-to-air missiles.
- 4 MGR-1 Honest John rocket systems armed with a total of 16 W31 nuclear warheads the Canadian Army deployed in Germany.
- 108 nuclear W25 Genie rockets carried by 54 CF-101 Voodoos.
- somewhere between 90 and 210 tactical (20–60 kiloton) nuclear warheads assigned to 6 CF-104 Starfighter squadrons based with NATO in Europe.

Then in the last year of PET's stint as PM, someone thought up the idea of jettisoning Canada's proud warrior tradition and the nukes were expelled from the Canadian inventory in exchange for a new narrative of blue berets and sh!tty ROEs.
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I was aware of all of that ... except the 'W25 Genie' rockets ... didnt know about them. Wow .. 1.5kt ... I guess just like horseshoes and hand grenades.
 
AP said:
I was aware of all of that ... except the 'W25 Genie' rockets ... didnt know about them. Wow .. 1.5kt ... I guess just like horseshoes and hand grenades.
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W25 was just the designation for that 1.5 kiloton fission warhead. The Genie rocket itself was designated AIR-2A. Unguided, throw it about 5 nautical miles, turn rapidly in the opposite direction, and hope to knock down some of the enemy bomber flock.
 
Worked with a chap who had flown the Voodoos. They practiced the launching technique, dry runs only, of course. He was skeptical if they would be far enough away by the time the thing detonated.

I'm sure I can remember the Cdn. Gov't stating unequivocally that the were never any nuclear warheads on Cdn. soil.
 
shredder said:
^^^Were those nukes not American-owned and controlled? IIRC the CAF couldn't do anything with the warheads without US codes.
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Kinda sorta. Basically US Airmen were embedded in the units. The idea being joint control/direction would be issued from either Norad in Colorado or the satellite base in North Bay. Canada is integrated in the C&C function at NORAD.

Another tidbit, the idea of nuclear "codes" is relatively new. "Launch Codes" only started to be implemented in 1977. Prior to that, the arsenal was "fitted for but not with" code locking starting in 1962 (a JFK decision). Until 1977 the code for all warheads was set to the default of 00000000, and this "code" was written right into the operator manuals to ensure nobody would forget it if they had to launch quickly. The launch terminals also turned on with 00000000 as the default entered code. So the code was really no code at all.
 
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I was serving with 4 CMBG in Westphalia during the Cold War. Our RCAF 'Starfighters' had the unhappy role of being low level nuke bombers, hopefully flying below the East German radar.
The Army was just phasing out the "Honest John" short range nuke missile. Had it ever been deployed tactically, we would have been dusted by the fall out. Same for any nukes deployed by the 'Starfighters'.
The grim reality is that there would have been no escape for NATO troops on the ground, but hopefully, our families would have been evacuated to Ostend and the other channel ports.
We made a farce out of our NBCW training as what suits were available were primitive, not allowing urination, defecation, eating or drinking.

tiriaq said:
Worked with a chap who had flown the Voodoos. They practiced the launching technique, dry runs only, of course. He was skeptical if they would be far enough away by the time the thing detonated.

I'm sure I can remember the Cdn. Gov't stating unequivocally that the were never any nuclear warheads on Cdn. soil.
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On the nuclear warhead theme...

A little know fact is that the Mercury Program launch vehicles were little more than re-purposed Redstone nuclear launch vehicles. The warhead was replaced with a tiny little Feedom capsule and the astronauts rode a ballistic missile into space inside it.

Al Sheppard's liftoff on May 7, 1951:

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An interesting footnote, one of the few remaining Mercury variants is on display at Kennedy Space Center. Standing next to it, you have to give Al Sheppard the nod. No way would I have ridden that thing, every other rocket at the KSC looks like the starship enterprise next to a redstone. Up until the mid-1990's you used to be able to take a walking tour of the launch site in this photo. I've been there a couple times, and it's amazing how little infrastructure there is. It's a ring on the ground, some fuel pipes and a cinder block bunker.

The whole area is now overgrown with commercial launch ops like Space-X and is no longer open to the public.

the nuclear batallion variant:

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The only mechanism to "steer" this missile was a pair of cast iron paddles at the thruster nozzle. Pretty prmitive stuff, but cutting edge in its day and designed by Dr. von Braun and a small team of scientists, many of which had european accents. The Redstone is a direct descendant of the V2, the designs being extremely similar.

These "little fellas" were considered "short range ballistic missiles" (SRBMs) with a 200 mile range and a payload of 6503lbs. The 2 warhead variants they were fitted with yielded 3.5MT or 500KT. One of the two manufacturers was Chrysler of automobile fame.

These were all retired in 1964 as better designs turned up.
 
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Claven2 said:
Another tidbit, the idea of nuclear "codes" is relatively new. "Launch Codes" only started to be implemented in 1977. Prior to that, the arsenal was "fitted for but not with" code locking starting in 1962 (a JFK decision). Until 1977 the code for all warheads was set to the default of 00000000, and this "code" was written right into the operator manuals to ensure nobody would forget it if they had to launch quickly. The launch terminals also turned on with 00000000 as the default entered code. So the code was really no code at all.
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This is an often promulgated story that - unsurprisingly - has more to it than meets the eye. Firstly, Bruce Blair's account (where this story comes from) is not universally accepted. But even if it is to be believed, it would be true of only one kind of Permissive Action Link (the term for 'launch codes') at the time. There have been several kinds, and it is true that not all of them were immediately implemented in 1962. The earliest were supposedly only three digit mechanical combination locks, let alone an eight character digital key. By the time the 1980s rolled around, there were 12 character keys, and they are probably much more complex than that by now.
 
CV32 said:
It took off from and landed on water, using skis, and was claimed to be able to operate in conditions with up to 10 ft waves.



Yes, a 'brilliant mistake'.
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AS with most jet powered sea plans they have the problem of engine failure. Lot of spray with sea planes, jet engines don't line ingesting water they tend to flame out. You might call this a bad thing during takeoff. The Russians tried some high engine sea planes but even they didn't last long.
 
Au contraire, mon ami. Witness the Beriev BE-200:

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Amphibian water bomber. In service for 20+ years, works very well. Engine placement is key.

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Great looking device to my eye. The ultimate fishing cabin.

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And to keep it military, a Finnish built Blackburn Ripon.

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One more ugly girl from the house of Blackburn. Swear to God, it's like those people went out of their way to make 'em homely.
 
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