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Avro Arrow and fuck government

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 7:29 pm
by Tikker
was watching a rerun of the miniseries about the Arrow


for those not familiar with it, it was a jet interceptor built by Canada in the mid-late 50's

it was the most advanced fighter plane to date, but was scrapped because of stupid fucking politicians

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 7:59 pm
by Phlegm
I think the arrow was the first plane to use flight-by-wire control.

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:39 pm
by DESX
This sounds like the Comanche helicopter that they just scrapped I think last year. It was gonna be the first stealth helicopter it was gonna be for reconnisance, and attack mode. Would have owned any other helicopter out their but the fucking politicans decided we didn't need it.

Image

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:50 pm
by Arlos
Actually, on the Comanche, the Army recommended it be cancelled, as I recall.

-Arlos

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:12 am
by Minrott
After Paul Tuettle when to all that work building a ridiculously hideous chopper theme bike for it? Egads.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:29 am
by Lueyen
Yea the project had a lot of problems. Costs kept going up, technical issues were not being overcome by deadlines ect.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95112.pdf

The project started in the early 80's and had a substantial price tag over the years. Arlos is right in that the Army decided to cancel the plan, besides technical and financial issues, the proposed roll of the aircraft was covered by later developed air craft including the AH-64 (Apache) and unmanned units.

Not only that but the needs had changed largely due to the difference in battle fields tactics between the cold war time period and modern day. The 2005 budget included funds for the project, these funds still went into Army Aviation.

While yes cancellation of the project was a big push of a Democratic Congressman from Oregon (Peter DeFazio) since the late 90's, I don't think the blame or credit (depending on your point of view) for the cancellation of the project can be solely laid at his feet. In the end both the politician(s) and the army felt the project funds could be put to better use in other areas.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:47 am
by Minrott
The money would be better spent on little machine gun toting robots that look like crabs and drink oil like beer.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:08 am
by Zanchief
This thread is about 1950s super Canadian jets, not crap helicopters.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:26 am
by Tikker
the Arrow's specs (if you built it today) would still make it one of the better jets out there


At the end of the movie thing, they showed where all the engineers and stuff went


90% of them went on to NASA, the rest, built the concorde for Air France

there was also talk of being able to use the Arrow to launch missions to the moon and whatnot


seriously interesting stuff, and probably would have changed Canada's military role

http://www.avroarrow.org/

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:38 pm
by Minrott
Still, it was called the "avro arrow" no fighter pilot wants to fly something that sounds like a cancelled Chrysler concept from 1952.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:09 pm
by Tikker
eh?

check out the specs (then remember it was 1958) and then come back and tell me no pilot would want to fly it ;)

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:38 pm
by Minrott
I'm just kidding. It would have been a hell of a plane. But they could have named it something cool.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:58 pm
by kaharthemad
AIR KILL 3000