CF-105 Avro Arrow

Anyone converting this aircraft from FSX to MSFS 2020 or developing a new version?

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I am playing around with the FSX to MSFS conversion mod from nexusmods and managed to get one of the old CF-105’s (found freeware using Google) from FSX flying. I’m no modeller by any means; I haven’t got the cockpit panel detail showing nor working, and there’s no afterburner glow. Anyone with more skills or time could probably do a better job. Plus this based off someone else’s work. If I ever get the details ironed out I will ask permission from the authors to post it. If someone does it first, I’ll happily download it.

Xtreme Prototypes made a good Avro Arrow for FSX (not the model I used) but as far as I know (I emailed them last year) they are not working on an update for MSFS. Hopefully a competent dev will make a new version in the future. I would purchase a well made Avro Arrow in a heartbeat. For now this will keep me occupied and I won’t be buying a low quality hack from the marketplace…

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Any devs want to step up to the plate on this one? I’m more than happy to provide some info if needed.

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Any more information than what is readily available through web searches? Like, original (paper) construction drawings that you could scan interesting bits of as needed?

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We all know those don’t exist anymore. :wink:

A great resource for all things Avro Arrow.

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Yes, I obviously know about that. The few drawing they have available on the web are rather low resolution scans that you can’t make out the numbers from. I emailed them in a friendly tone asking whether they maybe have some other drawings on paper that they could scan and make available to the public, but yeah, no reply. (And I don’t blame them, why would they reply to some random person asking for stuff for free, or cheap. And I am sure they don’t have any surplus of resources (volunteers with time).)

But there are some much better drawings to be found on the web, like this


from Avro CF-105 Arrow and its variants | Page 4 | Secret Projects Forum

But even that is just an overall drawing. Once one starts to actually make a 3D model of the aircraft in Blender (or whatever one’s tool of choice is), in order to achieve the level of quality that people are rightly now expecting with MSFS, one either needs detail drawings with measurements, or then one just needs to pull detail geometry information and their measurements out of thin air, to come up with something that looks credible.

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The best digital model I know of is from…

https://www.xtremeprototypes.com/shopexd.asp?id=52

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Sure, but that is the intellectual property of that company and can obviously not be used without permission (licensing) by anybody else.

Also, the fact that a CF-105 add-on existed for FSX makes it quite possible that the same developer (or somebody they have licensed their IP to) is already working on adapting it to MSFS, which means that there is a large risk that if one would start a separate CF-105 project for MSFS (which would take at least half a year to complete, more likely a year, if done by one person and not full-time), there would already be another one in the market by the time it starts getting ready.

An actual 3D model that is suitably licensed (Creative Commons AttributionCreative) is available at Avro CF-105 Arrow - Download Free 3D model by helijah [7f35555] - Sketchfab . But I have no idea how true to reality it is, I don’t know what documents the creator of it has used. But would be interesting to compare with the scanned paper drawing with lots of measurements that I included in my comment above.

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Diefenbaker Centre in Saskatoon CYXE at the University of Saskatchewan had plans at one point.

https://diefenbaker.usask.ca/

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Yes I had read about that, and now that you mentioned it, I decided to contact the owner of the blueprints. (The son of the engineer that kept them.) Let’s see whether he replies…

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Awesome idea! I am going to be the first one in line for whom ever makes a msfs model of this beauty. Such great lines. Would have loved to see the performance specs with the Iroquois engines.

My late father and uncles and their friends worked on the Arrow. I remember he had a ton of stuff when we were kids he liked to show us. Told us what he had was a secret. Never seen it again since my parents divorced when I was young. I put the feelers out to my sister and uncles to see if they can be located. My hope is that his new wife at the time or he didn’t sell them as they were very strapped for cash quite often.

He was down on his luck many times and I know things like my grandfathers WW2 medals somehow were stolen never to be seen again. We think he pawned them.

My hope is my sister has them as she got many of the military related items since she was in the navy full time.

Hope whatever I can dig up will prove of value. He was in the avionics and controls area.

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A lot of interesting documents (and event more non-interesting, from an MSFS add-on point of view) at Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow - NRC Digital Repository - Canada.ca

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Wow, this thread exploded in the last little while…

My hope is that MS/Asobo have already contacted Xtreme Prototypes and are already working on the Avro Arrow to be released as the historic aircraft for the (not mentioned because of NDAs) upcoming Canada Update.

Or someone else could…

Maybe I’ll focus on making some random liveries for now.

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(No reply.)

Yeah, that would be great. On the other hand, it is sad that such development is kept secret. It really is a way to make other developers, possibly very small businesses, disappointed. For instance, did Microsoft tell about the Ju-52 how long in advance? I imagine, it being such an iconic aircraft, that some developer might well have been spending months on working on their own version, but now then lost that opportunity.

But hey, that is life. You don’t disseminate your business plans long in advance in other comparable businesses either. Still, it would be cool if there was some anonymous way to inform other developers what you are working on, and check if somebody else is already working on something. But would be hard to guard against people misusing such a system of course, “reserving” aircraft that they actually won’t have resources to work on for a long time.

Yes, I agree, but I don’t really think we have that problem with the Avro Arrow. It would be nice to have the same issue as the PC-6, where at one point four different devs were working on it, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the case here.

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Long shot here … did finally someone was able to recreate the aircraft for MSFS ?

Any progress at all? I’m honestly surprised nobody really got the ball rolling. Testing, sure. Anybody, at all, getting this working at all?

I was hoping it would be in Update 11 for Canada Update, it’s instead the Beaver.

We realy REALLY need the Avro Arrow.