Saunders-Roe SR.A/1

The Saunders-Roe SR. A/1 was a prototype flying-boat fighter that was inspired by the moderate success of the Imperial Japanese Navy's seaplanes like the Nakajima A6M2-N, which was a seaplane adaptation of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero or the Kawanishi N1K. Theoretically they were better suited to the Pacific Theatre of Operation as seaplanes could turn any calm coastal area into an airbase, with their main disadvantage being the way in which the bulk of their flotation gear penalised their combat performance.
Saunders-Roe saw the, back then, new jet-engine technology as an opportunity to overcome that drawback as, thanks to the jet, there wasn't any need for a propeller clearance, so the fuselage could sit lower into the water and use a flying-boat type fuselage. Saunders-Roe presented first their idea to the air-ministry back in 1943, the SR.44 which was never materialised and it was going to be powered by am almost prototypical Halford H.1 engine with an expected performance of 520mph (837km/h) at 40.000ft (12.200m). However, the air-ministry deemed the design as having a thickness/chord ratio as too high for a high-speed fighter operating at high altittudes. Therefore, the design was modified to comply with the newly issued E.6/44 by the air ministry in April 1944 on the modified design together with a development contract for three prototypes in May 1944.
However, as the war was over, its development was secondary and Saunders-Roe concentrated their efforts on the Saunders-Roe Princess long-range civilian flying-boat.
So, as the project was considered secondary, it wasn't until 16th July 1947 that the prototype flew for the first time at the hands of Geoffrey Tyson and, both the first and its two sisters showed good performance and handling with Tyson making a demonstration of aerobatics and inverted flight at the 1948 SBAC display. Anyway, the need for such aircraft had gone with the end of the war and, furthermore, the war in the Pacific showed that aircraft carriers were more effective at protecting the airpower over the ocean, although Saunders-Roe argued that both carriers and escorts were still very vulnerable to both aircraft and other ships. Additionally the cockpit canopy was small and heavily framed having a poor field of view. An automatic mooring system was added to aid the pilot without having to leave the cockpit.
It was powered by two Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl that yielded 3850lbf (17.2Kn) of thrust power, but there was a problem as Metropolitan-Vickers ceased on the production of jet engines, making therefore the availability of such engine very limited. Therefore, project was cancelled and the prototype was put into storage in 1950. After the outbreak of the Korean War, it was briefly resurrected in November 1950, before the realisation that it was obsolete when compared to land-based fighters and the inability to solve the shortage of engines so both factor combined, forced the cancellation of the project which flew for the last time in June 1951.
Two of the three prototypes were equipped with Martin-Baker ejection seats and the expected armament was 4 20mm Hispano Mk.5 cannons in the front part and a payload of 1000lb (455kg) of bombs or rockets under the wings.
It never received an official name, but company workers referred to it as "squirt".
It also served as the main inspiration for the P.121 which was never matherialized and which will be covered in future posts.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.A/1
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Avro Canada CF-103

Now this is the last post before we switch on to another letter. Which one will it be? Who knows...

The Avro Canada CF-103 was a Canadian interceptor that never went beyond the improvised mock-up stage.

When the Canuck was still being designed, studies were already being carried out about it's development as the Royal Canadian Air Force was already looking for a high speed interceptor. Due to the Canuck's straight wing, chief designer John Frost, proposed a thinner swept wing. In December 1950 the design office decided to proceed with a redesign, basically adding swept wings to the CF-100 fuselage. It was also considered to have two streamlined fuel tanks blended into the leading edge of the wings near the three quarter position.
In spite of it's more powerful engines it was planned to reach a diving speed of mach 0.95 only marginally better than the Canuck Mk.2 and Mk.3.

In 1951 the Canadian Department of Trade and Commerce two prototypes and a static test airframe with the CF-103 designation. A wind tunnel test was carried out in November 1951 and a mock-up was built without undercarriage and engines with two tail wings configurations tested.
During the same year, when the test pilot Janusz Zurakowski flew the Canuck, it was evident that it was better than the predicted tests of the CF-103, so the design team tried to redesign it. The initial maiden flight date was expected to be the summer of 1952 but it was postpooned to mid-1953, however as the Cold War increased, the Canadian government made pressure to concentrate the aircraft manufacturing efforts on the CF-100 Canuck leading to the definitive cancellation of the CF-103 project in December 1951.

The mock-up was left at the factory's experimental bay with hopes of recovering the project, however in December 1952 Zurakowski achieved mach 1.06 with a Canuck Mk.4 in an unauthorized test flight, which leaded to the scrapping of the mock-up.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-103
2. http://canuck.purpleglen.com/cf103.html

Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow - Fictional Canadian users

As it's widely known, the CF-105 Arrow was cancelled due to some various reasons.
However, given the characteristics of the airplane, it's very susceptible to a lot of what-ifs.
So, this is the first post, out of two, where we cover various lookings of this interceptor that was ahead of it's time. Each of them is armed with one of the possible missile configurations,either the AIM-4A Falcon, the cancelled Canadair Velvet Glove or the AIM-7 Sparrow II. The Arrow was expected to have so much compatibility with American missiles because it was expected to be sold to the USA and the United Kingdom.
Finally, we decided to take some creative steps and we drawn an anti-ship version carrying one of the first purely air-to-sea missiles, the Nord SS.12/AS.12.
They're all are drawn with the weapons bay deployed in order to show their weaponry.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow