| 26" x 20" | "Sparring Partners" Don Connolly s/n by Artist Edition Size: 475 |
$65.00 (Cdn) |
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An Avro CF-100 "Canuck", known affectionately to its crews as the "clunk", completes a practice intercept on a B-36 of the USAF's Strategic Air Command, somewhere over mid-Canada in the 1950s. The tactic employed was termed a lead-collision intercept, with the two aircraft converging at approximately a right angle. This helped overcome the handicap of the fighter's marginal speed advantage over fast bombers. Even the massive B-36 could be pushed along at over 400 mph at high altitudes with, in the jargon of its crews, "six turning and four burning". The CF-100 holds a significant place in Canadian aviation history. In the 1950s and 1960s over a dozen RCAF front line squadrons were equipped with this capable machine and it remains the only Canadian designed and manufactured interceptor produced in strength. The last CF-100 was completed in 1958. Avro Canada's next design, the CF-105 "Arrow", was to have replaced it in squadron service with a production run of 500 planned. However, only six examples were completed before sharply spiraling costs sealed its fate.
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