Canadair CT-114 Tutor CL-41R

The CL-41R grew out of two programmes running side by side in the same Montreal factory. Even before its prototype flew, Canadair was developing the CL-41 with its own funds, a low-wing, T-tailed jet trainer with two side-by-side seats, and in 1959 it also won the contract to licence-build the Canadian air force's new fighter, the CF-104 Starfighter, the Canadian version of the Lockheed F-104. The adoption of the CF-104 created a specific need: future pilots would have to learn radar and avionics far more complex than anything the RCAF had flown before, and the few two-seat CF-104s available were expensive to operate as flying classrooms. For Canadair, the logical answer was to turn its own trainer into a radar trainer.

The airframe chosen was the programme's second prototype, registered CF-LTX-X. By 1958 both prototypes, CF-LTW-X and CF-LTX-X, were complete except for their engines: up to five powerplants had been considered (Armstrong Siddeley Viper, Continental Gabizo, Rolls-Royce RB.108, General Electric J85 and Fairchild J83), and because of availability problems both were fitted with the Pratt & Whitney JT12, installed on 18 September 1959. The first prototype, CF-LTW-X, flew on 13 January 1960 with Ian MacTavish at the controls; the second later became available for company trials and was the one converted.

The conversion consisted of grafting the F-104's radar nose onto the Tutor. According to a description of the aircraft based on Canadair's 1960 brochure "CL-41R NASARR Trainer", the nose was lengthened by about 1.8 m and ended in a pointed radome. Inside the new nose were the NASARR R-24A radar, with a search range of about 148 km, a voltage regulator and three inverters. Since the rest of the equipment would not fit in the nose, bulged fairings were added on each side of the rear fuselage, behind the wings and ahead of the airbrakes, housing the TACAN, the SIF identification equipment, the ARC-552 radio, the air data computer, the inertial navigation computer, the NASARR low-voltage power supply and its electronic control amplifier. These fairings took the place of the avionics bay that sat behind the cockpit in the CF-104.

The cockpit changed as well. A radar display was added, angled towards the right-hand pilot; the radar controls were placed in the centre between the two pilots, and the antenna tilt indicator, the SIF panel and the inertial navigator control panel went on the right-hand side. The same description states that a more powerful engine was fitted, a JT12A-2 built by Canadian Pratt & Whitney (now Pratt & Whitney Canada) rated at about 12.9 kN of thrust, and that all the changes added about 340 kg to the weight of the standard CL-41.

The aim was to let the student become familiar with the radar and avionics of the CF-104 and of the F-104G, the version flown by other NATO air forces, without using up hours on the fighter. The aircraft flew and Canadair took it to the 1963 Paris Air Show, but it attracted no customers: neither the Canadian air force nor the other F-104G operators ordered it, and the R model never went into production. The RCAF solved radar training another way, with Dakotas (DC-3/C-47) modified with the CF-104 radar installed in the cabin, nicknamed Dolly's Folly, Pinocchio and Woody Woodpecker. They were slow compared with a jet, but could stay airborne for hours and train several pilots per flight; Woody Woodpecker crashed in Pierce Lake, Saskatchewan, with the loss of its whole crew.

The CL-41R remained a one-off within the CL-41 family. In 1970 Canadair donated it to the National School of Aerotechnics in Longueuil, Quebec, where it served as instructional equipment. It later passed to the reserve collection of the Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, where as of August 2019 it was still awaiting restoration. Its test-programme partner, the first prototype CF-LTW-X, also survives although sources differ on its whereabouts: some still place it as a gate guardian at Southport Aerospace, at the former base at Portage la Prairie, while the National Air Force Museum of Canada states that it acquired the aircraft in 2013 and moved it to Trenton for restoration.