Arrow cannon options?

[elmayerle]

Hmm, that's understandable.  I could see a weapons bay pallet for RAF Arrows with two ADENs (put 'em together on the centerline) and two missiles or four ADENs.  From a practical viewpoint, I favor the mix of cannons and missiles.  I'll have to play with this idea, but I see a ventral fairing with two cannon and the ammo above them in the pallet with a missile rail on each side of the gun installation.

[jcf]

And incorporate the Holy Grail of aircraft electrics:

A Standardized Interface!



Cheers, Jon

[Phnx28]

Hmm, that's understandable.  I could see a weapons bay pallet for RAF Arrows with two ADENs (put 'em together on the centerline) and two missiles or four ADENs.  From a practical viewpoint, I favor the mix of cannons and missiles.  I'll have to play with this idea, but I see a ventral fairing with two cannon and the ammo above them in the pallet with a missile rail on each side of the gun installation.

Sounds good for a start, but maybe a bit small too. What missiles are you talking about exactly? If they're Red Hebes I understand totally. But if it's the standard Red Top/Blue Dolphin family I'm honsestly puzzled, since those aren't much larger than Falcons and the Arrow was once projected to carry fully eight of those plus three Sparrow IIs in the bargain. IMHO at least four Red Tops/Blue Dolphins should fit in that bay and still leave plenty of room for the guns, since the final armament projection before the Arrow got axed was four Falcon missiles and one or two Genie nuclear rockets (suspiciously like the much smaller F-106, and surely less than could physically be accommodated).

[elmayerle]

The Arrow was initially set up for weapons bay pods carrying 8x AIM-4 Falcon missiles or 3x AAM-N-8 Sparrow II missiles.  What I'm envisioning for the Canadian version is to replace the center Sparrow II or center four Falcons with a M61 and its ammo drum, for the Canadian fit, or two ADEN or DEFA cannon and their assosicated ammo drums, for the RAF and other European users.  This would allow room for two Sparrow II/IIIs or Blue Dolphins (these occupy roughly the same dimensional envelope) or four Falcons in either case.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

As far as gun options for the CF-105, I would think that the DEFA or ADEN guns in 30mm would have worked well for palletization and mounting in the weapons bay.  200 - 300 rounds per gun would be an adequate and quite realistic ammuntion supply considering the space available and the need to retain spent cartridge casings to prevent damage to the aircraft.  

[Phnx28]

The Arrow was initially set up for weapons bay pods carrying 8x AIM-4 Falcon missiles or 3x AAM-N-8 Sparrow II missiles.  What I'm envisioning for the Canadian version is to replace the center Sparrow II or center four Falcons with a M61 and its ammo drum, for the Canadian fit, or two ADEN or DEFA cannon and their assosicated ammo drums, for the RAF and other European users.  This would allow room for two Sparrow II/IIIs or Blue Dolphins (these occupy roughly the same dimensional envelope) or four Falcons in either case.

Hmm... Sounds reasonable enough on further consideration, especially after my consulting the Missile Non-Comparison Table here. :dum: Red Tops/Blue Dolphins are indeed much of a size with Sparrow after all, larger in diameter and marginally shorter in both length and wingspan. But the differences are tens of cm at most, probably not enough to cram more in without torturing that beauteous airframe beyond justice; NOT to be done, as I'm sure we agree. The reason I was so concerned is that I see these RAF Arrows pulling BARCAP and potential MIGCAP duty over Germany as well as UK interceptor routines, both before and after they get their ADENS, since they supplant the F-4Ms in this whiff. Hence, although the idea of British fighters going around packing one radar homer and one heat seeker like some Sukhois we know is interesting, the mission profile would probably just dictate a pure-IR or pure-SARH loadout on any given sortie. Keeping the Arrow's notoriously long range and known adaptability to Arctic climates in mind, might it even be conisidered as an escort fighter for the Black Buck missions from Ascension; using a bare-bones 2xRed Tops+ADEN dogfighting loadout opposite your 2xBlue Dolphins+ADEN interception loadout idea?:ar:

[elmayerle]

That sounds quite possible, especially when you figure that RAF Arrows, like later proposed Marks of the Canadian-production versions, would have underwing droptanks, too, for range extension.  I know I've posted Randall Whitcomb's interpretation of a RAF Arrow in strike configuration with a scaled-down Blue Steel (supposedly this was the payload the RAF gave to Avro Canada for their performance evaluations of the design).  Of course, RAF Arrows would also recieve the Fieri inlets of the Mk.3 and later Canadian Arrows.

The interesting thing is, both AIM-47 and AIM-54 missiles are close enough to the overall Sparrow envelope that carrying them, especially the proposed "reduced envelope" AIM-47B, would be quite feasible for very long range interceptor or escort missions.  Then again, by 1982, if the RAF had bought early, either AMRAAM or Active Skyflash would be available.

[rallymodeller]

The other cannon option would be the evergreen Pontiac T-160 rotary-breech cannon (as fitted to the F-5). These were tested in their earliest form on the CF-100 but ditched in favour of the M3's due to reliability issues.  

[kitnut617]

I'm a bit puzzled with the time line here.  Why would an Arrow be replacing an F-4, they were designed and built at the same time, the Arrow's first flight being a month before the F-4's first flight.  They both used the same technology, engines (at the beginning) air intake system, (edit) same weapons etc. flew at about the same speed and were designed for the same market in mind.

The Arrow was supposed to be a long range intercepter, but I don't consider 600 miles as being very far.  The book I have on the Arrow (for those who know the Arrow books, it's the one with the bright blue sky and the Arrow pointing straight up on the front) goes to great length to explain how Avro was trying even before the first flight, to extend the range to a 1000 miles or even 1500 miles.

In the book it has some maps on where the Arrow's would have been stationed and how they overlapped. Well, with the range it had at the beginning it couldn't even leave Canadian airspace.   To put it in perspective, if one was stationed in Calgary, it's range would be a couple of hundred miles north of Fort Mcmurray (which is almost to the mile 400 miles from Calgary, I know I drove it),
or if in Britain, and one was stationed at Hurn, it could get to the Orkeneys and back.  Not very far in my view.

For the Mk.3 the book goes on to say that they considering carrying 4 large fuel pods (the books words) under the wings, two under each with the undercarriage folding away between them, which meant that the undercarriage system would have to be totally redesigned.  Having six models of the Arrow and studied them quite a bit, I don't think that would have been possible.

Using the info from the book, I'm building a Mk.3 What-If and the only solution I have come up with for the undercarriage, as I've gone with using four 600 gal drop tanks, is to move them to the fuselage.  I've also done away with the weapons bay and this space would be used for fuel, the weapons being mounted semi-conformal along the bottom and fuselage corners.  The weapons I'm using are those which were developed for the YF-12, AIM-49's I think, which were a smaller (and pre-) Phoenix.  I've done a number of other changes to the airframe but the story behind that will have to be told elsewhere.

Robert

[Archibald]

As far as gun options for the CF-105, I would think that the DEFA or ADEN guns in 30mm would have worked well for palletization and mounting in the weapons bay.  200 - 300 rounds per gun would be an adequate and quite realistic ammuntion supply considering the space available and the need to retain spent cartridge casings to prevent damage to the aircraft.

The Alpha Jet could carry a gun pod with a single DEFA gun. Heller Alpha Jet (patrouille de France) had this gun pod...  

[Ollie]

F4H flew on May 27th, 1955 and CF-105 Mars 25th, 1958.

 

[Archibald]

F4H flew on May 27th, 1955 and CF-105 Mars 25th, 1958.

Not 1955, 1958... 27th May 1958.

same engines (at the beginning)

I don't understand this statement... the Phantom always used J-79 (to my knowledge) whereas the Arrow prototypes all used J-75 waiting for the Iroquois (on the RL-206, they were mounted on the plane on 20th February 1959, the day of the cancellation...)

The Arrow had 40% more power than the Phantom , had much better aerodynamics, internal weapon carriage which reduced drag, nearly 3 times more wing area which improved drastically agility at height.. climb was also vastly superior (10 000 m/mn for the Phantom, 13500 m/mn for the Arrow)

In fact the plane was more in the class of the F-108 (as interceptor) or F-111 (had it been developed into a strike aircraft).

[kitnut617]

F4H flew on May 27th, 1955 and CF-105 Mars 25th, 1958.

Are you sure, I'm sure I read that they flew the same year  

Robert

[kitnut617]

F4H flew on May 27th, 1955 and CF-105 Mars 25th, 1958.

Not 1955, 1958... 27th May 1958.

same engines (at the beginning)

I don't understand this statement... the Phantom always used J-79 (to my knowledge) whereas the Arrow prototypes all used J-75 waiting for the Iroquois (on the RL-206, they were mounted on the plane on 20th February 1959, the day of the cancellation...)

The Arrow had 40% more power than the Phantom , had much better aerodynamics, internal weapon carriage which reduced drag, nearly 3 times more wing area which improved drastically agility at height.. climb was also vastly superior (10 000 m/mn for the Phantom, 13500 m/mn for the Arrow)

In fact the plane was more in the class of the F-108 (as interceptor) or F-111 (had it been developed into a strike aircraft).

Yes yes you're right, I got the engine designation wrong, but the Arrow was nearly twice as heavy, at least all the data I've seen has described it like that.  But IIRC these two engines were not a lot different in power.  Once the Iroquois were installed the Arroe would have had more power.  But even then the speed advantage wasn't that great because of the additional weight.  All my books are packed away at the moment, but IIRC the Arrow was nearly a third bigger than a Phantom, and as I said the weight was nearly twice that of a Phantom and from what I read, the range was much less than a Phantom.  On top of that, the Arrow couldn't carry the amount of weapons as first advertized.  My data have it as carrying 8 Sparrows, whereas in reality it could only carry 3, and even when they changed to the Falcons, again 8 were advertized but only 4 could be carried.

Robert

[Ollie]

Right, same year.

Wiki's screwed then.

http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/phantomII.htm