Author Topic: Avro Canada Super Arrow  (Read 5447 times)

Offline kitnut617

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Avro Canada Super Arrow
« on: August 14, 2017, 01:40:47 AM »
I thought I had a thread of this build here but it seems all I've done is add a photo here and there to various other threads. Looking on the What-If Forum I see where I had started one so I'll copy and paste some of the narrative from there to here as all my photos over there have disappeared because of the PB ransom ---  Evan's recent request for Arrow wings led me to realize I don't have a thread dedicated to this build so here goes.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2017, 01:44:19 AM »
I had been reading the Arrowhead book on the future projects that Avro had lined up, and the description given for the Mach 3 Arrow said it was to have redesigned u/c and carry four fuel pods.  It said the u/c would have folded in between the two pods that were on each wing, I couldn't figure out how they were going to do that (thanks to Evan I now know) so I decided to come up with an alternative arrangement.  I decided that the u/c had to go into the fuselage and then also decided that these Arrows would have to be able to operate on less than adequate landing strips so the u/c would have to be more robust.  I wanted to keep the unique tandem wheel arrangement and thought that a TSR2 arrangement might work.  That is until I watch a video on the TSR2, there was quite a lengthy section which showed what sort of problems the TSR2's u/c was going through, the commentary saying that on production aircraft the u/c was to be re-designed (maybe TSR2joe can elaborate)  For what I could see the u/c was much too flexible and my thoughts for my Arrow was to have something much more robust.  I started to look at different u/c arrangements and came to the conclusion that the u/c system on an A-6 or F-14 would actually be best but then I had to work out how it actually worked and folded away.  With a bit of experimenting I was able to make a tandem wheel arrangement fold away like a F-14's system.  It actually worked better for how I envisioned the air intake ducting would work, with the ducts going up and over the wheel bays.  Here's some pics of the u/c I'm making for the Arrow.  The first pic is of my test u/c leg and wheels, and the others are of the refined ones which will go on the model.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 09:38:15 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2017, 01:47:22 AM »
With the u/c arrangement I'm using, this allows for the large fuel pods to be mounted closer to the fuselage, each wing will have two of these.  I'm going to mount a couple of AIMs on the outer pylons but I haven't decided what yet, something period anyway, a Sparrow maybe. So these are F-15 tanks, and the pylons come from a Mig 31 (IIRC)

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2017, 01:49:10 AM »
When the u/c folds away it looks like this.  I had decided that the main wheels would have to be something bigger than what the original were and also had to be something that was available at the time.  Some F-105 main wheels fitted the bill for what I had in mind, BTW this is 1/72 scale.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 01:52:41 AM »
I made the u/c legs out of different diameter aluminum tubing made by K&S Engineering, you can get the shapes from any RC Hobby shop, the LMS I get it from does the RC stuff and plastic models. Each tube is made to slide inside the next size up.  I used some styrene tube too for the bogie hinge.  In this set of photos you can see all the bits seperated, then assembled but with the oleo extended (as if there's no weight on it) and then with the oleo compressed, last one shows how the bogie part would rotate as it would fold away.  I don't intend to make it actually work on the model, it was a case of when it's done and some numpty chimes in and says 'that won't work', I can say "well yes it can 'cause I worked it out". In the bottom pic you can see that the axle beam is at an angle, this was because I wanted the main gear to spread further apart when extended.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 01:54:46 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2017, 02:02:29 AM »
OK, so now you're wondering what's this all about.  Well the idea is that this would have been the 'ultimate' variant of the Arrow. It was to go faster, go further and to be able to use forward bases in the far north of Canada. The Arrowhead book has some maps on how the Arrow was to be deployed in service but from what I can see there's a lot of flaws in the plan. They're spread too far apart to me for one. Remember the first Arrows that were to see service only had a 600 mile radius of action. Some bases were more than that to the coast line (and that's in any direction). I started to look at how you could extend the range of the Arrow and some of my first thoughts were bigger and more drop tanks. This pic is of my Arrow Mk.2 which was to use the Orenda Iroquois engine. You can see I've gone with two wing drop tanks

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2017, 02:27:49 AM »
Back in the Arrowhead book, the future Arrows planned were for a Mach 3 variant. There's some concept drawings of it in the book which have a similar style air intake to the F-105. There are not many combat aircraft with this style of intake, the ramp style is much more prevalent so when I started this I had considered F-14 or F-15 intakes. But after searching for info and pics of any and all aircraft that were designed or actually flew at Mach 3 they all had one thing in common ---- more power was needed.  The old tuner' adage for more power was " there's no substitute for more power than more cc's" so with that in mind I started to look for something with bigger engines.  That's when I first looked at the Mig 25/31, not only are the intakes about the right shape, they are nearly twice as big as the F-15 ones, plus the fuselages have a lot of similarities to the Arrow, being very boxy so doesn't look out of place if a developed Arrow was designed.  The bigger fuselage also makes it easier to install the more rugged u/c and the turkey feathers look about the right size for a Mach 3 Arrow. I decided to use a Mig 31 fuselage as a base though.

The base kits are about 40-60%  Hobbycraft Avro Arrow and Zghen -- Zgemhu-- Oh WTF -- Chinese manufacturer Mig 31.  I checked the  history of 1959, and three events that affect this project took place, early in the year the Arrow first flew followed about a month later by the first F-4 Phantom flight.  Then later in the year another aircraft flew for the first time which had about the same dimensions as the Arrow but also operated off an aircraft carrier, this was the NA A-5 Vigilante.  This aircraft pioneered the ramp style intake system and this also happens to be the most successful system of all jet aircraft.  Just about any aircraft that wanted to be king of the mountain used this system.  My thinking is that the final design of the Mach 3 Arrow would have gone down this route (sorry Evan).

All I did to the wings was space them a bit further apart to butt  up to the Mig fuselage spine (on the Hobbycraft kit the two wings butt up together and then a fuselage spine is glued above it to hide the joint) and then extended the outer wing panel leading edges.  I decided to do it a bit Avro style, as in Vulcan, but gave it a very sharp leading edge.  I have read somewhere that Avro (UK) was well aware of what Avro Canada was doing and even supplied A.C. some info on deltas and this influenced my thinking about these leading edges.

I increased the area of the tail, as in the Arrowhead book it shows the Mach 3 Arrow to have a much taller tail, I decided not to make it as tall and after drawing out the Mig 31 tail and working out the area of it (times two) I found to duplicate the total area all I had to do was add one scale foot to the leading edge and two scale feet to the tail base of the original Arrow tail.  It then comes close to the area in the Arrowhead drawing.

Back to the Arrowhead book, it says the Mach 3 Arrow would have had to have a bigger radar so I've tried to retain the Arrow look but with a bigger nose cone, I filled the Mig 31 nose cone full of Milliput and lead (I'm thinking this could be quite a tail sitter) and then re-profiled it so it looked like a refined Arrow nose cone.



« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 02:52:51 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2017, 02:33:41 AM »
I've got a few of F-15 kits, I thought I would have a look at the intakes and see how much of a difference there is between the Mig-31 ones and F-15's.  The intakes on my Arrow have been shortened in height but I left the width as it was, they're still quite a bit bigger than the F-15 ones, but not twice as big as I had stated earlier. I think that the F-15 intakes are just right for the Mach 2.5 Arrow though. Top two pics are the comparison, the bottom two show how the new wheel bays fit into the grand scheme of things.

In the two photos of the lower fuselage you can see the engine tunnels stand out, when I measured the depth of the fuselage of the Mig 31 from the top to the bottom of the depression between the engine tunnels, it was the same as the Arrow kits total fuselage depth where the bottom of the fuselage is almost flat.  This worked into my story about making the engines bigger by being able to use quite a bit of the original airframe (it has a keel between the engines which the fin is part of)

You can also see from here I'm working on one side first, and once I get this right I'll duplicate it for the other side. I did however, re-profile the Mig 31 intake to look like the profile of the F-15 intake. An interesting observation is that the top side of the Mig 31 intake is sloped downwards as it goes from the fuselage to the outside edge, this just happens to match the anhedral the Arrow wing is set at. Bit of a co-incidence that I think ----
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 02:58:20 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2017, 03:01:56 AM »
The cockpit and canopy are a 'work-in-progress' at the moment, the canopy you see in the pics is my master-copy. I hope to be able to make a nice vacuform canopy of it. It's mostly using the Mig 31 canopy but the windshield is actually from an EE Lightning.

The armament for it will be all external, I won't be using a weapons bay. The original Arrow was projected to carry eight Sparrows (early ones) and there was a lot of 'red-faces' when it turned out that only three could be carried internally. Pics here show my weapons bay for the Arrow Mk.2. For this project I'm thinking of using AIM-47's, the same that would have been used for the Lockheed F-12. And for secondary armament, some Sparrows. Not using any Sidewinders though, this is not a 'dog-fighter'.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2017, 03:11:00 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline jcf

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 03:26:04 AM »
The eight missile arrangement was for the Falcon, not the Sparrow.
Sparrow carriage was originally to be four, but, as you stated, had to be
reduced to three because of space limitations.
“Conspiracy theory’s got to be simple.
Sense doesn’t come into it. People are
more scared of how complicated shit
actually is than they ever are about
whatever’s supposed to be behind the
conspiracy.”
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Offline Kelmola

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 05:37:27 AM »
This is extremely inspirational considering I just acquired the Arrow kit. I also happen to have a spare Hobbycraft F-15E in The Stash, destined to be chopped for various whiffy projects (all it's good for really, considering it's about the same "quality" knockoff copy as Zhengdefu makes nowadays), and was thinking of using the intakes and burner cans from that to make a "faster" Arrow, but now you make me ponder whether I should acquire a MiG-31 instead :D

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2017, 07:09:07 AM »
IMO, the F-15 intakes would be fine if you were just swapping out the intakes on the Arrow Mk.1 or 2. I had worked out the opening area of both types and they're quite close.

I went with the Mig 31 fuselage because I wanted the bigger engines.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2017, 07:14:35 AM »
This is the 'Arrowhead' book I've been using. There's a lot of drawings in it which if you read about the end of the Arrow were all supposed to be destroyed.  The book was recommended to me by the guys at Action Hobby in Calgary. These are the guys who built the flying RC 1/8 scale Arrow which appears in the Dan Aykroyd movie about the Arrow.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2017, 07:16:24 AM »
The eight missile arrangement was for the Falcon, not the Sparrow.
Sparrow carriage was originally to be four, but, as you stated, had to be
reduced to three because of space limitations.

I'd have to re-read the book Jon, but I'm sure it says the Falcon fit-up came after they found that they were not going to get anymore than three Sparrows in the weapons bay.

Offline jcf

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2017, 09:32:13 AM »
I also have that book, two copies in fact as the first fell apart.
It's the 'scanning' copy. 😁
“Conspiracy theory’s got to be simple.
Sense doesn’t come into it. People are
more scared of how complicated shit
actually is than they ever are about
whatever’s supposed to be behind the
conspiracy.”
-The Peripheral, William Gibson 2014

Offline elmayerle

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #15 on: August 14, 2017, 09:46:16 AM »
No need to apologize, while I like the look of Fieri intakes, I quite concede that the vertical two-dimensional intakes as pioneered on the A3J are simpler and just as efficient (having said that, I do have a NAA display/proposal model with horizontal two-dimensional intakes).

I have seem proposals for advanced Arrows with reduced sweep outboard wings (somewhat like a Draken's) so your version is by no means out of the question.

Offline jcf

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #16 on: August 15, 2017, 03:39:09 AM »
The eight missile arrangement was for the Falcon, not the Sparrow.
Sparrow carriage was originally to be four, but, as you stated, had to be
reduced to three because of space limitations.

I'd have to re-read the book Jon, but I'm sure it says the Falcon fit-up came after they found that they were not going to get anymore than three Sparrows in the weapons bay.

Page 133, from bottom of left column, to top of right column:

"However in 1953, the Air Staff insisted that the production version of the Arrow
must be able to accommodate the advanced Hughes MX-1179 system that was
not yet developed. They also wanted bigger and better missiles than the
proposed Falcon.
The Air Staff in their wisdom decided that it would be nice
if Canada could develop and build a marvelous new weapons system, custom
built for the Arrow and much better than anything else contemplated. They
also requested a new missile be developed called Sparrow 2.
"

« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 08:18:28 AM by jcf »
“Conspiracy theory’s got to be simple.
Sense doesn’t come into it. People are
more scared of how complicated shit
actually is than they ever are about
whatever’s supposed to be behind the
conspiracy.”
-The Peripheral, William Gibson 2014

Offline apophenia

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #17 on: August 15, 2017, 06:13:49 AM »
Great build kit:smiley:
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Offline pigflyer

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #18 on: August 21, 2017, 04:01:56 AM »
Bee you tifull.  Cracking whiff, shame it never happened.   :icon_alabanza:
If I don't plan it, it can't go wrong!

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Offline Brian da Basher

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Re: Avro Canada Super Arrow
« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2017, 06:43:28 AM »
Bee you tifull.  Cracking whiff, shame it never happened.   :icon_alabanza:

I couldn't agree more or put it better!

The thoughtful engineering is most impressive.

Brian da Basher