Avro Super Arrow

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 12:20:43 PM

So checking out some of the stash boxes that I brought up to the house last weekend, I found my project box. And in it was my Super Arrow:

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 12:37:31 PM

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 to 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.

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 12:41:51 PM

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 AAMs on the outer pylons but I haven't decided what yet, something period anyway, a Sparrow maybe.

John Howling Mouse · July 17, 2008, 12:53:19 PM

Boy, when you get back into it, you go all the way. This is already impressive. Can't wait to see more.

Brian da Basher · July 17, 2008, 01:01:00 PM

It's very pointy and only has one wing...definitely outside of my area of expertise. I don't see any spats, either.

But it's like that old saying, " I may not know jets, but I know what I like!"

The Super Arrow looks like it could break the sound barrier just sitting there!

Brian da Basher

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 01:05:54 PM

I've been doing this for a couple of years Barry, I get it out every now & then and have another bash at it.

Rafael · July 17, 2008, 01:13:24 PM

Great subject!!!

Glad you found it. God bless those mysterious unopened boxes from last move!!!

I like the bogie mains, they're really rough-field looking

Rafa

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 01:19:00 PM

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.

Rafael · July 17, 2008, 01:23:28 PM

Speechless!

Standing ovation!!!

Rafa

Sisko · July 17, 2008, 03:07:59 PM

Wow I really like the look of this.

Working landing gear. Most impressive

kitnut617 · July 17, 2008, 03:28:17 PM

Thanks guys, I wouldn't say it's totally working u/c, it's just that I wanted to find out if I did what I'm doing, it would have worked.

Shasper · July 17, 2008, 03:39:33 PM

Giggity. . . . just Giggity!

Shas

kitnut617 · July 18, 2008, 10:45:07 AM

Couple more pics and also a photo of a profile I bought from CanMilAir last year which is drawn by Richard Banigan. As I said further back in the thread I've been building this on and off for a few years and when I received the profile I was amazed to see someone else had similar thoughts as to where the Arrow might have progressed too.

noxioux · July 18, 2008, 06:30:24 PM

Quote from: kitnut617 on July 17, 2008, 03:28:17 PM
Thanks guys, I wouldn't say it's totally working u/c, it's just that I wanted to find out if I did what I'm doing, it would have worked.

That's really going the extra mile. I'm lazy, so I would've just slapped it together. This is most impressive!

kitnut617 · July 18, 2008, 08:09:14 PM

Thanks !!

The base kits are about 40-60% Hobbycraft Avro Arrow and Zghen -- Zgemhu-- Oh WTF -- Chinese manufacturer Mig 31. I change the depth of the forward fuselage and then re-profiled the ramp intakes to look more western in style. My reasoning is that after looking at the history of 1959, 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. It then comes close to the area in the Arrowhead drawing.

Back to the Arroehead 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.