Many readers will be too young to remember the Avro Arrow designated the CF-105 Canada's most sophisticated interceptor. In it's day it was the most advanced aircraft of it's type in the world. The project which was generating employment for over 14,000 direct jobs and 46,000 indirect workers was cancelled on black Friday, Feb 20th 1959. Only five aircraft were completed. The aircraft was not only designed and built in Canada but the Iroquois jet engines were also designed and built here. The Arrow represented not only the pinnacle of Canadian aviation it also represented what many people to this day feel was the worst example of bullshit ever to come from a Prime Minister's Office. With the stroke of a pen an entire industry was ruined, Canada's leadership was destroyed and we were forced to buy our air force planes from other countries and support their engineers and industry while ours withered on the vine. Several thousand lives and the dreams of millions of young Canadians were ruined. Forever.
To rub salt into the wounds all drawings, documents and aircraft were destroyed. Books have been written, a movie was made and people will carry strong opinions on the Arrow to their graves. Was it a good decision or a bad decision? Who knows -most people that research the facts will have an opinion on it. I was eleven when the Arrow was cancelled. I was one of those Canuck kids who assembled a scale model kit of the Arrow and dreamed about flying in her one day. There was a huge amount of pride in the Arrow. It was an event when you saw her fly overhead. There was excitement there. And great sadness when they cancelled the project cut them all up and melted them down for scrap.
This is a good area to research if you like aircraft and history. You will learn more about Canada and the abilities our citizens have and yes the bullshit they need to put up with. And after your research you will be faced with a decision. Was it a good idea or not?
Imagine that after a lot of hard work your school hockey team won the cup and then the principal came in and cancelled the team and took all their jerseys and the cup and the pictures of them holding it and even the hockey sticks and burned them all and then said nobody could play hockey again and the players were transferred to other schools. That more or less is how the Arrow project ended. 50 years have passed since the first ARROW flew and people still feel bad about how the project ended.
A good friend of mine referred me to this link showing the first flight of the AVRO ARROW and I think you will understand how proud Canadians were when you watch it. Remember this is just a few years after WW2 in 1958 and Canada led the entire world in jet interceptor design. Here is the link and thanks Doug!!
Another friend actually had an opportunity to work on them and thought they were the best aircraft Canada ever had up to that date although he liked the F86 Sabre he was not a fan of the CF100 Canuck because of the difficulty of working on them and the general reliability of the aircraft. He was there and saw all three.
I wonder what would have happened had the project been completed? Could have, should have, didn't -the story of the AVRO Arrow. It would have been nice to have a few squadrons of them today to help our troops in Afghanistan. Apparently our CF18 Hornets are incapable of dropping bombs because they don't have the right gear installed and need a retrofit. Go figure -an air force that can't fight.( I realize the pilots want to -they just don't have an aircraft in inventory that can provide close air support to ground troops so instead they perform at airshows and once a year pretend to fly wingman to Santa Claus.)
The Honourable Peter McKay our Minister of Defence announced that Canada will pay over 9 billion dollars for 65 of the new American made F35 fighter aircraft. Here is the problem. In March, 1958 Canada flew the Avro Arrow and lets now review it's specs compared to the new fighter we are paying a fortune for:
Avro Arrow vs F35
designed and made in Canada designed and made in the USA
length 85 feet length 50 feet
width 50 feet width 35 feet
two pilots one pilot
two engines one engine
1524 mph 1200 mph
62,431 max wt pounds 60,000 max wt pounds
3.5 million cdn $ each 155 million USD each +
So lets consider that. The Arrow can lose one engine by sucking up a Canada Goose while flying over our vast Northern spaces or one pilot and fly home, the F35 can lose one engine or pilot and immediately crash to the ground into some inaccessible moose pasture a thousand miles from anywhere. In other words it's goose is cooked! The Arrow is bigger and faster than the F35. The Arrow was designed and built 52 years ago in Canada by employed Canadians who paid taxes here. Now dress me up and call me stupid but what is wrong with this picture? Oh and lets not mention the other problems with the F35 design and build which have many experts very worried.
Questions: Since the main advantages of this purchase clearly goes to the USA and USA taxpayers then -who in Canada received bribes, "future considerations" or benefits to lobby for or approve this purchase? When you "follow the money" -normally you find those who benefit from any financial transaction. Will the Canadian media do this? They could look closely at the usual suspects -our senior politicians, military and public servants and the rich and powerful who will benefit with such contracts. Or will they dumb down the story and just show us pictures of the F35 and keep the story on a grade five level? This purchase also means Canada remains completely dependent on the US aircraft industry for the design, production and maintenance of it's frontline fighter. Do we even need a front line fighter? (when is the last time a Canadian air force jet participated in a dog fight-by my count it was 1945 or 65 years ago!!) What we needed in Afghanistan was a much better supply of helicopters and some air to ground support. Going 9 billion + dollars into debt to buy a foreign built aircraft which is unsuited to Canadian conditions is perhaps not the best idea no?
Finally a sane person might remark that it is pure lunacy to compare the specs from a Canadian built warplane from 1958 against the best new warplane using all today's modern technology. But take a close look at the specs. Something is very wrong here. And imagine for a moment had we put the Arrow into service in 1958 what the latest version would be able to do.
You need to ask who is in charge? Do they know what they are doing? Are they competent? Billions of dollars are being spent by these characters but what are we getting for it?
Canada was never known for it's brilliance at the Minister of Defence or Chief of Defence Staff or even senior military levels. There appears to be no planning for future events even when several decades of lead up time are involved. For example we haven't laid down the keel of a new naval ship for over 15 years despite the fact our supply ships are now obsolete and our destroyers rusted out. Our CF-18's came into service in 1982 and by my math that means the Canadian Government had over 30 years to design and build a replacement. But nothing was done by the people hired to do this and all we did was simply yard out the taxpayers check book and hitch our star in typical Canadian freeloading fashion to our hard working cousins down South. The Avro Arrow proved that Canadians can design and build a world class aircraft. Be sure to visit our Stupid Page where we discover why these types of problems exist here.
Sad eh! To this day people collect and cherish artifacts and memories of what was the greatest fighter aircraft in the world when Canada was leading the world. Of all the countries on the planet Canada was the leader. One of the problems is myth vs reality and information about the Arrow often seems to be more mythical than real with the result that there is some doubt about just what the real facts were. I know I was a kid at the time and had fond childhood memories of the Arrow and for many years always thought we made a huge mistake when the Arrow was cancelled. Now I realize that I don't understand what the facts really were. I do know though that every time I see a picture of the Avro Arrow I like it! That counts for something because a sailor's eye is pretty good at that sort of thing. She looked beautiful, big and powerful and Canadian. Something to be proud about because we designed and built her ourselves instead of following directions and using the plans from another country.
Before you make up your minds I will direct you to a talk given by Jan Zurakowski who was the Avro Arrow's chief Test Pilot. I suggest that talk may answer a lot of your questions.
Every time I think about the Arrow I think of opportunity lost and a sad time for the Canadian aviation industry and for Canada itself a country of some 33 million souls that still hasn't come of age. We still depend on others way more than we should. On this website we also delve into why Canada is number 30 in the world in patents per million population -check out our patents page!. Had we only shown a bit more backbone the billions of dollars of taxpayers wealth that we spent in other countries for our basic air defense needs would have been spent here. We would have had thousands of excellent jobs including engineering and technical positions and we may even been able to graduate to a Canadian owned vehicle too instead of being limited to assemblers for other countries who supply the brain power, designs and initiative. The sad fact is that we are unable to maintain our front line fighter the CF18 today because we can't keep enough trained technologists in boots to look after them.
One could get a bit discouraged except for the fact that once we did design and build and fly ...the Avro Arrow in Canada. We know we can do it. Now where is the will? Our population has doubled since 1958 so why are we still buying our aircraft from other countries? This is why this website exists - to ask these types of questions. If we all sit around and do nothing I can assure you nothing will happen.
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AVROLAND an excellent website showing details of the Arrow and CF-100
Looking Back on the AVRO ARROW - interesting facts and ideas about the Arrow including questions about how good the design really was in comparison to modern aircraft
A talk given by Jan Zurakowski the Avro Arrow's chief Test Pilot.
