Canadian Arrow Completes Drop Test

hpulley writes "The Canadian press is reporting that X-Prize entrant the Canadian Arrow made its first successful crew compartment drop test on Saturday. It is essentially a modern version of the German V2 rocket. This test was just a drop of the crew compartment to test the parachutes. Next comes a launch abort test to see if the crew can be safely sent away from the vehicle. No word yet on when they might launch the consecutive flights in two-week turnaround for the prize. Fellow Canadian entrant the da Vinci Project will try to launch October 2nd. In the fall, venerable model company Estes Rockets will have a new model of the Canadian Arrow along with models of other entrants like the Rubicon." Oddly enough, I saw the crew compartment being driven around in Toronto on Saturday morning (towed behind a white pickup truck), but I didn't know what they were up to.

Enlighten me...

[FiReaNGeL]

There's something I don't get with the X-prize craze...

The 10 millions US$ seems like a major incentive to participate... but isn't the cost of such an endeavour much, much higher than that? Even more so when you consider the fact that the actual chance to win is not that high...

It's named after the legendary Avro Arrow

[Viking5150]

The Canadian Arrow was named after the Avro Arrow, a revolutionary jet interceptor built in Canada in the 1950s during the height of the cold war. It was years ahead of any other jet interceptor design at the time.

"A source of national pride, the Arrow incorporated advanced technical innovations and became a symbol of Canadian excellence.

One of the finest achievements in Canadian aviation history, the delta wing Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was never allowed to fulfill its mission. The Arrow weapons platform along with the Iroquois engine was cancelled by the Conservative Diefenbaker government February 20, 1959, less then 3 weeks before the MK2 Arrow was to take flight."

http://www.avroarrow.org/ [avroarrow.org]

Woot for canada

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

Seeing as I haven't heard much news on any non-Canadian teams other then spaceshipone, this is awesome for Canada. We're going to be the first to make an official launch, and we now possibly have a second on the go. As things get closer to October (Canadian team launches on the 2nd, Americans on the 4th) this whole X-Prize thing is starting to get really interesting. Its pretty hard to predict how things will turn out right now, but it's definitely going to get very exciting.

On another note, I only live about 4 hours from where the first Canadian team is launching, so I'm going to get to experience that.

Re:Enlighten me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the Da Vinci project (Canadian team) had a budget around $5 million (CDN). So if they won they would stand to make a tidy sum.

$10 million (USD) prize...
Thats alot of Canadian pesos...

Plus. I think if one of the companies really succeeded, a $10 million prize would be nothing compared to the potential cash revenue (they could put nasa out of business!)

Old technology

[TheUncleBob]

It seems strange that they are using 60 year old rocket design, and a pod that looks oddly like spaceship one's pod (All those black dots/windows)

I thought the x-prize would push innovation forward, not recycling (or has the patent on v2 rockets recently expired) . Otherwise couldn't we have done this 50 years ago?

Re:Any of these guys German?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the Arrow is based in London - ONTARIO, so maybe if the rocket goes off course, London will be threatened - just the "other" London. :)

For what it is worth, one of the men building a part of the guidance system is of German ancestry too. Those of us who are his freinds have been teasing him to no end about that point.

Re:It's named after the legendary Avro Arrow

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded funny? The Avro Arrow was the most technologically advanced fighter plane of its time, it was cancelled to allow American dominance of the areospace industry. The F series of fighter planes never would have taken flight if the Arrow was manufactured.

Re:It's named after the legendary Avro Arrow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well you really do need to read between the lines on this one. Avro was a British company, so there were no problems with the UK gov't. In fact, a lot of the money came from England. There were plenty of potential orders from the European allies, so it wasn't a financial problem. The problem was squarely with the Americans, who felt threatened because their aircraft weren't even close to the Arrow.

The US stopped the Arrow cold. The money was already spent, why cancel it two weeks before the test flights?

Re:Hmmm - somethins smells fishy...

[Blastrogath]

First, Canadian imperial mesurements are mostly but not allways the same as american "standard" mesurements. The gallon for example is a different size. I think there's no difference in the feet/miles/inches department though.

Speaking as a canadian, I use imperial as much as metric on a daily basis. Metric is used for weights and volumes, but not the weights of people. I don't know my height in metres and houses are built all in imperial but our highway speeds and distances are in Km. Metres are actually not in as common use as feet.

It's probably at least as easy for most canadians to understand something's height etc. in feet as in metres. If you're going to list some stats in imperial you may as well list them all that way, to be consistant.

Re:Space Ship One - Competition

[mykepredko]

I think it's important to understand that there are several "competitors", but only one real contender...

Something similar would have been said in 1927 with the Ortig prize. The actual winner was essentially completely discounted; Lindberg (sp?) was considered to be underfunded, minimal experience, using an aircraft that had only been tested once (on a transcontinental flight) and only had one engine and one pilot to boot!

Maybe one of these groups with "garage technology" will have the right stuff.

myke