Avro CF-100
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The Avro CF-100 Canuck was a Canadian jet fighter used during the Cold War. The only Canadian-designed fighter to enter mass-production, the aircraft's first flight was January 19, 1950 [1]. It entered service in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) as a fighter in 1952. The aircraft operated under the U.S./Canadian North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) to protect the airspace from Soviet intruders such as nuclear-armed bombers. It featured a short takeoff run and high climb rate for its day, making it well suited to its role.
Although originally designed for only 2,000 hours, it was found that the Canuck's airframe could serve for over 20,000 hours before retirement. Thus, though it was replaced in its front-line role by the CF-101 Voodoo, the Canuck served with the RCAF until 1981, in reconnaissance, training, and electronic warfare roles.
In its lifetime, a total of 692 CF-100s of different variants were produced, of which 53 aircraft were delivered to the Belgian Air Force. A number of aircraft still remain across Canada (and elsewhere) as static displays.
Canada has a very low population density, so the air force bases are few and far apart. Also, the arctic and mid-arctic barrens offer immense expanses of desolate geography. Because of these vast stretches without population and facilities, the Canuck was designed more as a long-range interceptor aircraft than a traditional short range jet fighter. Its nose radar made it also one of the first all-weather jet fighters. Several Canuck squadrons were based in Europe, where they were for some time the only NATO fighters capable of operating in zero visibility and poor weather conditions.
It was the first RCAF jet fighter designed and built in Canada, and also the last, since its successor the CF-105 Arrow was judged too costly for Canada and the program was terminated before the planes could be produced in series and put in service. The CF-100 was ultimately replaced with American-built CF-101 Voodoo interceptors.
Operators
- Belgium, Canada,