[appophylite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3602 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Saying that it could go M7 did not originate from me. I know people in both the USAF and the Canadian AF. Canadians, to avoid too much attention, understated the Iroquois engine specs and did not unleash the engines' full power during test flight.

I'm still seriously doubting this. The info online states as wuaffiliate did earlier, that the fastest real time flight speed ever clocked by the Arrow was 1.98 Mach at 3/4 throttle. Straight Line interpolation from a dead stop through this point would indicate that the plane could accomplish Mach 3 (2.66 for an actual interpolation) at full throttle. For it to go from 1.98 at 3/4 to 7.00 at full throttle would require massively exponential increase in speed.

In any case, here's the listing of all the major air speed records clocked by airplanes over the years: Flight airspeed record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The fastest any manned craft has ever traveled is the Space Shuttle at Mach 22.7 (17500 mph), which it only achieves on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. In atmosphere, the fastest manned vessel clocked Mach 5.8 (4510 mph) (The North American X-15). The fasted manned production aircraft to date is the Lockheed Martin SR-71 coming in at Mach 2.85 (2194 mph) on sustained flight. NASA broke the Mach 7 barrier with an aircraft in atmosphere back in 2004 but that flight was unmanned. Now with the Arrow program being officially scrapped in 1959 and along with it, development of the Iroquois Turbojet program, is it really likely that the USA, Russia, Europe or even Canada itself wouldn't have tried to work off of the work done and the new info obtained to have developed a manned turbojet aircraft in the last 50 years that could achieve those speeds of Mach 7 you claim (without proof) that it was capable of? (Note: There are projects such as Lockheed's project Aurora that are hypothesized to be able to meet/exceed the Mach 7 barrier, but none are confirmed, and most of them are hypothesized to use ramjets and scramjets and not turbojets)

 

[mbriant]

I'm sorry to disagree 3602, but unless you somehow know something that the rest of the world doesn't, your information is wrong. There's been all sorts of books and television specials written on the subject. I've never heard anything about Mach 7, or there being one plane left ... in parts or otherwise. They're still looking for a couple of 1/4 sized models that sank during testing in Lake Ontario, and a group of former engineers who worked on the project, have created a life-size reproduction (non-working ... no guts ... just for show) for a museum .... using partial plans that were supposed to have been destroyed but were smuggled out of the factory during it's closing .... so unless you have some sort of proof to back up your claims, your story sounds more like an exaggerated conspiracy theory than fact.

PS: I had a long discussion about the Arrow project cancellation many years ago with my former boss, Paul Hellyer, who worked in the next office to me for 15 years. Paul was an aeronautical engineer, a pilot, a Member of Parliament in the 50's during the Avro project and it's cancellation, and became Canada's Minister of Defense in the early 60's .... not long after the Arrow cancellation. He was the leading Liberal critic of the Conservative party which cancelled the Arrow ... and his story was the same as everything else I've ever heard.....cutting edge technology ... potentially and probably the best fighter plane of it's time (if they had ever finished it) .... but certainly not decades ahead of everthing in it's day.

 

[Avro_Arrow]

The American Government pressure the Canadians to scrap the Arrow because it
was the only plane that could have intercepted the then super secret U2 spy
plane. It's funny how much of the Arrows technology soon ended up in the century
series of fighters and how many Avro engineers ended up at NASA.

 

[DigitalFreak]

I live in Wpg 3602 and to this day some people here still get worked up about the Arrow being shut down.  Some of the testing and development was done here in Manitoba and the day the final word came from Ottawa many people lost faith in the system. The job losses as well as future monies lost for offshoot development projects was crushing for the aeronautical companies.
 
For all our American and European members what 3602 says is very true. Back in the day the Arrow was a huge deal and was cutting edge in aeronautical engineering. When I was a teen I ran across people who once worked directly and indirectly with the Arrow project and they also stated the engines of the Arrow were never tested to their full capabilities. On paper those engines were supposedly able to hit close to M7 whether they could actually do it nobody ever got a chance to find out. It could just be an urban legend started by people who were close to the project and that later got blown out of perportion by word of mouth who knows. Because of the job losses there was a huge backlash against the ruling govt of the day and a somewhat anti American sentiment for the next few years. It's to bad the project was closed down because we could have had one of the most powerful air forces and considering the cold war was in full swing we would have made a killing selling the technology to our allies.
 
As for the one last plane left story that's been an urban legend for as long as I can remember. Some of the old timers who worked in the aeronautics industry said the head project engineers couldn't bring themselves to destroy the Arrow completely and had the last test model disassembled and quietly stored away. The hope was in the near future the project would be refunded and they could pick up where they left off. Nobody really knows if there's any truth to the story but enough people seem to believe it's real. Apparently the Arrow was a real labor of love for the head engineers.

 

[Avro_Arrow]

I would like to believe there is still one in existence somewhere, but I just
can't see the workers and engineers trying to cart off landing gear, wings,
tail fins, etc in the trunks of their cars...
 
Perhaps there is in one in the hangers in area 51.
 
The Iroquois engines were never tested in the Arrow, just the underpowered
GE engines. Had the Iroquois been installed, maybe we would have seen the
real performance the airframe was capable of. One Iroquois engine was installed
on a US bomber for in-flight testing. Even though the engine was mounted very
close to the centerline, the bomber was unable to keep from turning even with
the other engines at full thrust, the thrust from the Iroquois was so great.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

I would like to believe there is still one in existence somewhere, but I just
can't see the workers and engineers trying to cart off landing gear, wings,
tail fins, etc in the trunks of their cars...
 
Perhaps there is in one in the hangers in area 51.
 
The Iroquois engines were never tested in the Arrow, just the underpowered
GE engines. Had the Iroquois been installed, maybe we would have seen the
real performance the airframe was capable of. One Iroquois engine was installed
on a US bomber for in-flight testing. Even though the engine was mounted very
close to the centerline, the bomber was unable to keep from turning even with
the other engines at full thrust, the thrust from the Iroquois was so great.

You and me both. I've seen pictures of the Arrow and growing up I had a small model of it on my desk in my room. It would be rather neat to see a REAL ARROW in all it's glory. From all the stories I've heard it's such a shame the project was cancelled. I'm surprised concerning your statement involving the Iroquois engines. I knew they were using more then one engine type but I thought the final Iroquois test engines were installed and fully functional on all the Arrow's when Ottawa dropped the axe on future funding.

 

[Avro_Arrow]

Concerning the top speed of the Arrow...
From the earlier discussion, I don't think mach 7 would have
been even remotely possible. If you look at similar thrust class
planes of today, the F-15 comes to mind. It, too, has about
50,000 Lbs of thrust and a smaller airframe. Top speed on that
plane is around 2.5 mach so I don't think the Arrow, with it's larger
airframe, would have much exceeded mach 2. It would have climbed
and turned better had the more powerful engines been installed though.
Still, though, anything above Mach 2 in it's day was exceptionally fast.
One Arrow, 205 I think, had the Iroquois engines installed but it never
had the chance to fly before the program was canceled.
 
I've seen the bits and pieces they have in the museum in Ottawa.
 
Quote:

You and me both. I've seen pictures of the Arrow and growing up I had a small model of it on my desk in my room. It would be rather neat to see a REAL ARROW in all it's glory. From all the stories I've heard it's such a shame the project was cancelled. I'm surprised concerning your statement involving the Iroquois engines. I knew they were using more then one engine type but I thought the final Iroquois test engines were installed and fully functional on all the Arrow's when Ottawa dropped the axe on future funding.