CF-105 Arrow - Fast Facts 3
Spud Potocki recorded the fastest flight of an Arrow in RL 202 when he reached Mach 1.98 on Nov 11, 1958.
Avro Design Engineer Red Darrah was the only passenger to ever fly in an Arrow – checking the fly-by-wire systems in RL 203 for Spud Potocki on Feb 19, 1959. The very next day the Arrow program was cancelled.
Spud Potocki was the only pilot to fly RL 205 – it was ordered destroyed by government having ever only completed a forty-minute maiden flight on Jan 11, 1959.
Although there were five test aircraft, no two Arrows were ever in the air at one time as Avro only had one telemetry flight test recording system.
A large aircraft, the 100,000 hp required for the Arrow to fly supersonic consumed a quarter ton or one hundred gallons of fuel per minute.
Empty, the Arrow weighed 48,821 pounds – with full internal fuel, some 68,664 pounds.
The Arrow carried 19,849 pounds or 2,544 gals of fuel that was being constantly pumped thru fourteen separate tanks to preserve the balance of the aircraft in flight.
The first five MK 1 Arrows had Pratt & Whitney J75 engines with each having a dry thrust of 12,500 lbs of “dry” and some 19,250 lbs of “wet” thrust with afterburner.
The Mk 2 Arrows with the Canadian Iroquois engines would have had 19,250 lbs of “dry” thrust and 26,000 lbs of “wet” or afterburner thrust.
The Iroquois would go from idle to full dry thrust in just 2.8 seconds or to full afterburner 26,000 lb thrust in only 4.5 seconds after opening the throttle.
