Cope is one of only four
pilots to fly the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow
pre-production aircraft. During the
design phase of the Arrow Cope was involved
in testing the (fully-powered vs. boosted
hydraulic) flight control development CF-100. This
aircraft was used to test feedback and other
effects on a fully-powered system in mind
for the Arrow, under different simulated
flight conditions. Avro gained much
needed data on the effects of flight, vibration
(including sound) and aeroelasticity with
this test rig. On one occasion a mode
was induced on this aircraft that resulted
in hydraulic feedback that developed into
a shake in the flight controls and over-pressures
that the CF-100 seemed ready to tear itself
apart. It was, indeed, damaged severely,
with many lessons learned for the CF-105
in design, simulation, controls and hardware. Subsequent
Avro work in this period represented the
the first major use of real time or ‘at
the speed of light’ computing in various
aspects of aircraft design. Following
the CF-100 powered hydraulic test aircraft
Avro developed an Arrow hydraulic systems
test rig in the plant with Cope involved
in the testing and development of this unit. Actual
Arrow components were tested, evaluated,
rejected, improved or replaced in this rig. Once
it was hooked via Avro’s IBM 704 mainframe
to the computerized Arrow flight simulator,
which interfaced the pilots controls, navigation
computer, radar, and other items as they
were developed, became the world’s
first 4,000 psi, “real time” electronic
flight control system, with pilot’s
inputs originating as an electrical signal,
for all flight control surfaces. With
Zurakowski, Potocki, and Woodman, Peter Cope
shares the distinction of having flown the
first aircraft in the world to fly with such
a system, an aircraft designed and built
in Canada for Canada!
Those were days of high
enthusiasm at Avro, and the Arrow was shaping
up to be a monster in terms of performance
and weapons capabilities. Once again,
Peter Cope was selected to lead the armament
development for the Arrow due to his expertise,
and his testing of the various missile
systems in the CF-100 had mostly been directed
to the acquisition of primary weapons for
the Arrow. He also undertook work as a ‘guinea
pig’ for the RCAF school of environmental
medicine (co-located with the DCIEM) for
high-G centrifuge and high-altitude de-compression. He
was also involved in high-temperature environment
research. |
