I am remiss. I haven't taken a bite out of the Canadians for the CF-105

Vrenn

Platinum Member
Feb 24, 2021
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I am going to compare the CF-105 Avro with the other interceptors of the same time period.

First the Avro. Excellent attempt but it wouldn't have been in the service before 1962. Here are the specs on the Avro. I won't bother to go for the weapons as all of them had the same available weapons.
Max Speed 2,453 km/h (1,524 mph)
Max Altitude 17,830 m (58,500 ft)
Combat Radius 350 miles
Rate of climb 15,240 m (50,000 ft) / 4 min 24 sec

F-104A
Max Speed Mach 2.2+
Max Altitude 58,000 feet. But it held many time to climb and was used to train shuttle pilots where is was at over 100K
Combat Radius 294 miles
Rate of Climb 50,000 feet

F-4B
Max Speed Mach 1.9 (2,370 km/h, 1,470 mph)
Max Altitude 18,000 m (60,000 ft) It held the record of over 97,000 feet for a couple of years
Combat Radius 367 miles
Rate of Climb 210 m/s (41,300 ft/min)

F-106
Max Speed 1,525 mph, 2,454 km/h) at 40,000 ft (12,200 m)
Max Altitude 57,000 ft (17,000 m)
Combat Radius 580 mi, 930 km With Internal Fuel
Rate of Climb 29,000 ft/min (150 m/s)

Between the F-4 and F-106 both made the CF105 Avro not exportable. In fact, the Brits had their own model 155 coming out in 1963 that also was a nail in it's coffin. Even the F-104A pretty well out performed the CF-105 by a wide margin. In an intercept mode against Russian Bombers coming over the top, turn rates didn't mean a thing. You got up fast, hit your target(s) and shagged it back to reload. Plus, the CF-105 cost many times what the F-104 did and that's the reason that the Starfighter was purchased instead. Canada also purchased a limited number of F-101 Voodoos which I find was a poor choice.

The CF-105 was about 8 years out of date when it would have started production and the expense of over 30% of all Canadian Military Budget sure didn't help.
 

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