Avro Arrow Shes Back!

A history lesson young people.
Other countries have for generations been developing technology.
How far have we come since the stealth tech was shown in the gulf war?



Avro Arrow 1958 specs. They were this far ahead 1958, How far ahead do you think they might be now?


Credit to Jim100 AB

A short synopsis of the Arrow
The Arrow as Fighter-Interceptor
RCAF AIR 7-3 Specification and the C-105

Avro Canada and the RCAF examined a range of alternative sizes and configurations for a supersonic interceptor, culminating in RCAF "Specification AIR 7-3" in April 1953.

This AIR 7-3 specification called specifically for a crew of two and a twin-engine design requiring a range of 556 kilometers (300 nautical miles (nm) for a normal low speed mission and 370 km (200 nm) for a high-speed intercept mission.

It also specified operation from a 1,830 meter (6,000 ft) runway, a Mach 1.5 cruising speed, an altitude capability of 21,336 m (70,000 ft), and a maneuvering capability for 2 “g” turns with no loss of speed or altitude at Mach 1.5 at 15,240 m (50,000 ft).

The specification also stipulated just five minutes from starting the aircraft's engines to reaching an altitude of 15,250 m (50,000 ft) at Mach 1.5.

It was also to have turn-around time on the ground of less than 10 minutes. (Jim100 AB that’s Refueled and rearmed and ready for another mission)

An RCAF team then visited US aircraft companies and also surveyed British and French manufacturers before concluding that no existing or planned aircraft could fulfill these demanding requirements.

In May 1953, Avro delivered a report,

"Design Study of Supersonic All-Weather Interceptor Aircraft", outlining the major features of an updated C-104/2 design, which was now known as the C-105. A change to a thin "shoulder-mounted" delta wing allowed rapid access to the aircraft's internal systems, weapons bay, and engines. This thin wing was required for supersonic flight and the delta design provided the lightest structure

A big advantage of the computer flight control system was that it allowed the Arrow’s designers to design into the plane marginal or even negative stability factors, another first (by many years). The Arrow was intentionally designed to accept marginal stability, going from moderately positive to neutral on the pitch axis, and from slightly positive to moderately negative on the yaw axis. Because of the extra instability in the yaw axis, every aspect of it was at least double redundant except the single redundant hydraulic actuator itself. Perhaps now you can appreciate how truly advanced the Arrow was. We weren’t able to really compare it to anything until today because there was nothing to compare it to until today. Flight performance envelope graphs, accumulated and transposed by R.L. Whitcomb for his book Avro Aircraft & Cold War Aviation shows that no medium or long-range armed fighter---to this day---could match the Arrow’s 1G combat weight performance curve, except the F-22 Raptor.

They wrote the book in terms of the modern method, yet the book had to be written all over again once Avro was killed and the engineers dispersed.

The Arrow and the IBM 704 computer

In 1955 Avro had projected the performance of the Mk2 Iroquois powered Arrow to be

Maximum speed of Mach 1.9 at 50,000 feet.

Combat speed of Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet while sustaining a 1.84 turn without bleeding energy Time to 50,000 feet of 4.1 minutes.

500 foot per minute (fpm) climb ceiling of 62,000 feet (i.e. able to climb at 500
fpm from this height)

400 nm (nautical miles) radius of action on high-speed mission.

630 nm radius of action on a low-speed (including 5 minutes supersonic combat)
mission


Ferry range is not given but estimated at 1,500 nm

However, and to the elation of the Arrow designers and company in general the Arrow Mk 1, with about 40% less thrust then the Mk 2 and more weight, actually exceeded Avro’s own higher 1955 estimates for the Arrow Mk 2 by exceeding Mach 1.9. By October of 1958 due to test flying Avro was able to refine the drag estimates, feed them into the IBM 704 computer, and produce accurate projections that indicated 20% lower supersonic drag at maximum performance then even they themselves had projected.

Due to this exceptional performance Avro knew the Mk 3 would be capable of considerable more than Mach 2.5. With improved materials and a new intake design that would be efficient at Mach 2.2 and above, Avro knew they would have an Arrow capable of at least Mach 3. This was nearly ten years before the SR-71 Blackbird or the Mig-25 Foxbat flew, suggesting Avro had an excellent advantage over the competition---given the freedom to exploit it.

Performance Report 15 included the empirically refined performance projections and figures this document indicated that the Arrow Mk 2 would have remained the top-performing fighter-interceptor in virtually all categories until the advent of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.

In fact an enormous amount of verbiage has been expended in claims that the Arrow would not have been manoeuvrable, based merely on the perceptions of it being such a large aircraft. In reality it was not that much bigger than the F-101 Voodoo or an F-15 Eagle, Neither of which would have seriously challenged an Arrow Mk 2 in a combat air patrol or, “top cover” or “air superiority” mission.

Furthermore, size means nothing in determining aircrafts manoeuvrability potential. It can however, be calculated based on five factors. In comparison with any of the
aircraft built at the time and since in similar roles, from any country, the Arrow appears to have had attributes which would have given superior manoeuvrability to virtually any plane to this date---save the F-22 Raptor which has reverted to internal weapons carriage and a relatively low wing loading.

Aeronautical engineers are welcome to debunk this.

Last Edited by I lick public toilet seats on 01/19/2021 10:33 PM