Aircraft that never lived up to their promise

In article z_Wyb.544890$9l5.43876@pd7tw2no,
"Ed Majden" writes:

"Andrew Chaplin"
Besides, wasn't the missile armament for Arrow to have been Velvet
Glove?

The Velvet Glove was actually a CF-100 experimental missile. The CF-105 was
going to use the Sparrow II missile. It would have been no big deal to
adapt the Genie to the Arrow if they had wanted to. Canada was reluctant to
adopt nukes but eventually did with the Bomarc, CF-101, and the CF-104 in
Europe. We were asked to leave France when we took on the nuclear role.

Now, that's most patently untrue. The fact is, in the late 1950s,
early 1960s, Canada had jumped onto the Nuke Bandwagon more deeply
than any other NATO country, including the U.S.. The CF-104s were
built solely as Nuke Bombers. They didn't have guns, AAMs, Bomb
pylons, or even gunsights. The only thing they could do was haul a
single bomb very fast at low altitude in almost any weather.
Conventional capability was added in the late '60s/early '70s
(Trudeau era) at a cost almost as great as the initial cost of the
airplanes.
Canadian Air Defence was provided by the CF-101s and teh Bomarcs, both
of whgich were only effective when carrying Nukes. (2 IR falcons doesn
not a Studly Bomber Killer make).
The Army's main punch in Europe were a couple of Honest John rocket
Regiments, again, only effective when carrying Nukes.

The bombs may have been "Dual Key" U.S. built weapons, but Canada had
been pretty much completely set up as a Nuke-Only shop for 5 years
before the French threw their tantrum. (The proximate casue of which
was a U.S. RF-101 overflight of their Nuke Weapons Lab. It seems that
DeGaulle didn't want the rest of NATO to know what he was up to.)

The U.S. always had control of the nukes. The U.S. would not hand over this
control to France so we were asked to leave. The French then developed
their own nuke program. 2(F)Wing in France closed with 1(F)Wing remaning
open as a transport base. 3(F)Wing and 4(F)Wing in Germany took on the nuke
strike recon role after converting from Sabres and CF-100s. This roll again
changed down the road but I'm not sure when as I was back in Canada by then.
Today Canada is non nuclear again after the Bomarc and CF-101s were phased
out of service.

Uhm, the French Nuke Program had been happily rolling along since the
1950s. The Force de Frappe was formed in the early '60s, and they got
their Mirage IVs in 1961.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster