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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.
Incredible how much that arrow looks like a smaller scale model of the rocket used in the comicbook about Tintin from the French cartoonist Hergé.
It is essentially a modern version of the German V2 rocket.
Looks like London may not be safe yet. Someone call Tony Blair!
By the way, I have German ancestry (first generation American). Don't get all riled up.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
Cmon, you'd pay to see that, wouldn't you.
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...
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
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/
As I understand it, the small stuff I used to play with (A-D engines) is still operating under the same rules as always. It's the bigger, heavier rockets that have extra restrictions.
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.
Hi there
Yes! oh yes, yes,yes!!. More More please More!!
Unfortuneately no. This technology is designed to return the occupants SAFELY.
I would take any method into space tested to work, including one with MS OS on board... wait, let me rephrase that...
I thought arrows are supposed to be launched from a bow. I demand a refund! This arrow doesn't launch from a bow, and part of it breaks off and floats down... 0.o
Well, parachuting to the ground worked for the Americans for almost 30 years. Never lost an astronaut either. OK, so we dropped into the water.
It worked for the Russians, though, and they never lost a.......oh wait.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
My wife and I got up early, biked down to the islands and took the ferry over. We had a perfect vantage point as the crew compartment came down approximately a kilometre from us offshore. We were even closer to it than the emergency crews that were on hand in case it landed on the island (and you didn't see the slow moving object on parachutes coming at you...).
Interesting name, perhaps a bit nostalgic?
Where they land it ain't my fault, says Wernher von Braun".
Before you mark this off-topic, note the "based on the V2" reference.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
To be extremely pedantic, Hergé wrote in French; therefore he wrote French cartoons; therefore he was a French cartoonist.
Ha!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Are you sure they're Candian? The entire website is in Feet/Miles/Inches! Not a meter in sight!
;-)
I dunno. Sounds like we have a couple of american defectors doing the work up there... Time to bring those traiters back.
-Adam
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?
A manned cruise missile.
Well, there ought to be a first time for everything.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Don't count on the Canadians winning... it makes things really easy when the project is named after the original Arrow... afterall the Canadians do really want to sell lumber and no so mad cows!
..bright screens for bright people, but now I've got to wear sunglassess.
So... what the hell happened to Scaled Composites and Space Shipe One?
Threw in the towel? Someone stole their ship? Shouldn't they have done their 2nd flight like 3 months ago?
As a proud Canadian citizen I am truly embarassed by the Canadian Arrow. It most certainly does not live up to the Avro Arrow, which was ingenious and revolutionary in every sense of the words.
Multi-stage space vehicles are so 1970s! Come on guys! Let's see some true innovation coming from Canada. Maybe, the Canada Super Arm, which would simply pick people up and put them directly into orbit. Or how about, the Canadian Slap Shot Ship, a large black single stage saucer like device launched via contact with a huge wood paddle.
Even I can think of better plans than the Canadian Arrow. Pffft.
Why are they reinventing the wheel?
I know it's a joke / troll, but honestly, I think it's important to understand that there are several "competitors", but only one real contender, based on the development cycle and reality of the technological ability to achieve the goal. All these rocket people are trying to do this on garage technology, and the end result is going to be dead fools in a tin can, if they even try. It still cost a lot of money to send a body to space, even if it is done on the cheap. The Russians have perfected this. And while they are poor, they still have a lot more $$ than just about any of these guys. I see dead bodies.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I don't know about the US, but in canada IIRC larger rocket engies allways required a permit.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
>In the fall, venerable model company Estes Rockets will have...
When I read that, for a second my mind finished the sentence as, "...Estes Rockets will have its own X-prize entrant!"
Ah yes, I can just see it. Say, 20 stages, each with a cluster of 400 D12-0 engines. Better reinforce those balsa fins with some epoxy fillets, though. I don't think Elmer's Wood Glue is rated for supersonic applications.
"Oddly enough, I saw the crew compartment being driven around in Toronto on Saturday morning (towed behind a white pickup truck)"
Those were the low velocity sex tests. Watch out for the crew compartment being sent over the Niagara Falls for the more advanced Sex in Space tests.
we bombed the German V2 website out of existence...
I believe it required some sort of permits to get them before. The issue is that now they are considered munitions, and therefore its not just a matter of getting the permits, but there are additional licenses you need to get to ship, handle, buy, launch, and store them. This puts it out of the range of most of the amatuer rocketeers who were doing this stuff before, as well as effectively shutting down quite a few of the companies that made the things in the first place.
Yo mamma said the same thing to me and three other guys last night! She even paid for the donkey!
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
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Essentially the logo, design and even the name resembles one thing:
Wang.
Why go back to the sucky V2 rocket? That was a great vehicle 60 years ago. Literally your grandfather's vehicle. Go with the far superior Saturn V rocket (your father's rocket)! Sucker has 5 engines, 12' in diameter pushing about 3 million Lbs of rocket up! Ahhh, I remember feeling it go up and a sight to behold indeed! Unless that is too hard for the Canadians. The US has already done all of the work. Using 1960's computer technology to boot!
Hopefully they won't try to launch at sea level. That is one of the most idiotic things NASA did. Launch from some place high like Denver, literally 1 mile up! Saves a lot of rocket fuel.
Pedant (n.): Merriam-Webster online says "a male schoolteacher... one who makes a show of knowledge... Etymology: Middle French, from Italian pedante". At a guess, probably related to "pediatrician" (for the Brits in the audience, "pediatrician" is not a synonym for "pedophile" or "pederast", even though it's from the same root, so you can spare yourself the effort of running down to your local People's Democratic State Health-Care Gulag and breaking all the windows).
I KNOW you spelled "pedantic" correctly in the body of your post. So what? You think you're the only pedant on the block?
That having been said, I'm not surprised there were no glitches in the drop test. Canadian hardware is too well-mannered to fail.
The article doesn't belong under "science", though. It's engineering.
At least I think I am. WTF IS a "deomcrat", anyway? Do you mean "deumcrat"?
...who doesn't know what "ratiocinate" means. Oh, wait, you're one, too.
It was only natural for Malda (being Malda) to establish a maximum IQ requirement on Slashdot right from the get-go, of course. And the rest is history.
tHIS is not *even* in the same park. The factors are much, much different.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
tHIS is not *even* in the same park. The factors are much, much different.
No?
I'd be curious to see what you consider the different "factors" and at the same time, I suggest you look over the history of the Orteig prize and how many famous aviators *died* trying to win it. At the same time, compare the features of Lindbergh's plane to the other competitors' and compare Lindbergh himself to the other competitors.
It is important to note that while Lindbergh is credited for spurring on trans-atlantic air travel - his aircraft could never be considered a prototype for the airliners that were later used for the task. There's a certain irony that the later aircraft were of the configuration of Lindbergh's competitors (multiple engines, multiple crew, etc). If one of SS1's competitor's beats it to the prize, I wouldn't be surprised if the winning team is lionized for the feat, but private spacecraft were more similar to SS1's concept than the winner's.
Getting back to the original question, what are the different factors? Travelling to space is different technically, but how is the danger, excitment, promise different in 2004 to crossing the Atlantic in 1927?
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I put my money on Burt Rutan's team. They have proven themselves in other record breaking aviation events - and given the great flights they have had - are a leg up on the competition.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain