1:1 Avro Arrow

Does anyone know the story behind it?

Reply to
mholt
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The Canadians made a great movie (titled "The Arrow", natch!) about 10 years ago that covers the entire sad tale of the aircraft and of all things starred Dan Aykroyd as Crawford Gordon, president of A. V. Roe Canada. Very watchable and worth seeking out.

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

There was a guy who built a 1-1 scale Avro Arrow. The studio that mad the film "The Arrow" borrowed his model for the film. Ironically when the filming was finished the model was cut up and returned to him. Apparently they cut it up because it was too big. Ironically the trucking of the cut up pieces of the model looked almost identical to the trucking of the cut up original Arrows on their way to the scrap yard.

Cheers from Peter

Reply to
Master Gunner

Funny, It is here in downsview aviation museum. It is huge, and beautiful.

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It is actually just missing the second engine, then ready to fly. :-)

Reply to
FalconGuy

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Hi there.

This means that there were/are two full-size replicas of the Arrow. As I said above the one used in the film The Avro Arrow was cut up after filming.

As an aside. At the Mount Hope museum I heard that there was an original Arrow hidden away in a sealed hanger at Downsview. Wouldn't that be something if it wasn't just a myth?

Cheers from Peter

Reply to
Master Gunner

ul.http://www.casmuseum.org/avro_cf105_arrow.shtml>

Mid 70s I took a course on theory of warfare from what was then the political advisor to 5th AF in Japan. When the war in the Pacific ended, he spent a fair amount of time driving around looking for Japanese hardware that wasn't turned over. He said a few times when way up in the hills, there were some not so friendly locals who obviously were hiding something. Would be nice if there really were some WWII Japanese airframes out in the hills somewhere. Originals can be counted on one hand just about in the museums of the world. I'd like to see some of the flying boats. Or some of the bombers. Same with the Luftwaffe.....

Reply to
frank

Would be nice if there really were some WWII Japanese airframes out in the hills somewhere. Originals can be counted on one hand just about in the museums of the world. I'd like to see some of the flying boats. Or some of the bombers. Same with the Luftwaffe.....

One of the books in may collection indicated that Skoda Morters from WW I were supposedly destroyed as part of disarmement after the war - but reappeared for World War II.

Another article was about a hiker who came upon railroad tracks leading to a cliff overlooking the Pacific. He followed them back and found a shed with a World War II coastal defense gun that a local farmer was still get monthly payments to maintian the preservation coating.

Urban Legends, Bullsh*t or true but they do catch your interest. I'm still hoping some day they'll find the Ark of the Covenant next to the Roswell Saucer while cleaning out an old government warehouse.

True story - At the end of WW II on the NY docks somebody asked my grandfather to watch something until he got back. It was a 50 caliber machine gun in a canvas bag. The guy never came back - he dragged it home. Sometime in the early 50s my grandmother put it out with the weekly garbage. I witnessed this - weird things happen. It's probably in the garbage man's grandson's attic.

Val Kraut

Reply to
Val Kraut

the rail gun was in england. ian hogg and a friend were walking when they found a siding going of the main line they were out scouting a site for the army and it was in 1939. they thought it would be a great site to defend against ships and french targets. when they asked a local, he said he took care of a 12" raiil gun for the army. didn't they know it was there? he was dumbfounded as he took them to see it. it was in a shed located in a small valley, hard to see. it was clean and oiled up for use. before ww1, the army put it there and never used it. he wrote of this in the intro one of his ballantine weapons books. i think this was was the big guns. those ballaentines were a great series. they are almost unknown now. despite being almost a cliche tale, it is true. after all, if you don't trust ian.....

Reply to
someone

Hi there.

That story is also in Blackburn's "WHERE THE HELL ARE THE GUNS" which is the third volume in The Guns series. The other two are THE GUNS OF NORMANDY and THE GUNS OF VICTORY. They are about the 4th Field Artillery Reg't. RCA.

Cheers from Peter

Reply to
Master Gunner

There's a tale that the French government bought a number of SBCs in

1940. By the time they were delivered to the French CV the war was over. The carrier went to Martinique for the rest of the war, and all but one airplane was recorded being onboard when the arrived at their exile. In the 70s there was talk about checking out the old warehouses in New York harbor, because someone had heard that someone else's first cousin had found an old airplane when they were hiding from the cops.

What happened to the Brewster collection in Tullahomah, Tennessee? The owner of the land died in about '72, and when his family looked at his farm they found SBAs and Canadian Tiger Moths by the dozen (literally).

I heard a story that a chap who was hunting for a small airport for his retirement was taken to an abandoned Army field. There was a hangar and two or three buildings, all sealed up when the Army left in

1945. His wife looked into the hangar window and then calmly marched to him and told him they were buying this one. When the paperwork was signed she told him there was new Staggerwing parked in the hangar. The tale ends with the airplane being found to have less than 100 hours on it.

I want to believe!

Mike

Reply to
mholt

ian is one of my all time fave historians. ditto william green. i don't think there is anything the two haven't shot, flown, or know how to use.

Reply to
someone

Ian Hogg also tells the tale of the Dover Turret in his book on coast defences; all the paperwork says the two 16 inch RMLs were scrapped, but they're still there... There are RML tubes all over the former British Empire, usually just dumped over the nearest cliff. The carriages were easily cut up by scrap merchants, who then found it would cost more for gas to cut up the tubes than they would profit from the metal, although sometimes they did make a start. The tubes of some 7" RMLs on Flat Holm could be seen in some shots of an episode in the last series of "Torchwood", of all things... I'd best not get started on coast defence guns as they're a bit of an obsession with me, but of some relevance to a scale modelling group is that the aft 11" turret of the KM Gneisenau is still extant in Norway near Trondheim, while two of her twin 5.9" turrets are in Denmark. At the start of WW1, Vickers were going to build a battleship for Brazil which was cancelled, but not before they had got started on the 15" guns. Between the wars they sold these to Spain, along with some newer variants. The last time one of these was fired prior to decommissioning was - wait for it - September 2008!!! If I'd known about them, I'd have paid money to be thetre to see that...

Cheers,

Moramarth

Reply to
Moramarth

to me the isles are like a giant toy chest of military goodies. everything from mott and bailey's with wooden walls to the cold war underground centers that popped up in neighborhoods that never knew they existed. i wish i had seen more in the 60's. a lot of the old airfields still had relics and artwork from the war. i did see a few but the girls were more important them. the joys of a mispent youth. i believe they still use armor from the tirpitz on test ranges. i wonder what amazing things are filed and forgotten, especially with a country with history going back 10,000 years. did you see the show about exploring the dug in trenches and mines from france? they found a mine with tons of explosive that was never fired. might be british, might be german. the tunnels were amazing. cheers indeed!

-somebody

Reply to
someone

snipped-for-privacy@some.domain said the following on 11/11/2010 01:29:

[Snipped]

You may want to look out for one of the Time Team special episodes. It's a tv broadcast 'pop' archaeology series and they did dig one of the tunnels and found some interesting things.

Normally they spend the hour on a specifically chosen site in any of the 10,000 years history as you say and they're great fun.

...and 'yes!' that's Baldrick from the tv comedy series Blackadder!

Reply to
Richard Brooks

looking a bit older.

Reply to
someone

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