46 Comments Add your own

• 1. Sean Woods  |  November 29th, 2006 at 11:55

  “If only” and “what could have been…”, phrases synonymous with the Avro Arrow Interceptor. It is sad and incredible to think that outter influences and politics killed the hopes and dreams of many Canadians, not just the employees of Avro. Personally i think that it wasn’t so much the militray capabilities of the aircraft that made it so special, rather it symbolized what could be accomplished by the nation’s greatest engineers and aerospace technicians. Of course, its hard for someone born in the early 80s to have any relevant comparisons or recollections of what was felt by the Canadian Public of the day. Alas, i still find myself looking at the Arrow and thinking… “what could have been”.

• 2. scott cudmore  |  May 8th, 2007 at 08:56

  could anyone send me a message tell me why the avro arrow was destroyed at burton_snowboarder12@hotmail.com

• 3. tyler23  |  August 24th, 2007 at 16:23

  I am 15 and my great grand father worked on this plane, and the cancelation of the contract took him and 14,000 others out of work, it is to late to do something, but lets hope, that that kind of thing happens very rarley if ever again.

• 4. Luc  |  September 13th, 2007 at 02:06

  This aircraft was ahead of its time. An engineering masterpiece since it even had some kind of computer. From this story, we can appreciate that our liberty is limited to never exceed the might of our big brothers.

  No wonder that Britain and France never wanted to buy defense from the Yanks. If you would come into a conflict with them using planes made in the US, then through EW, they would neutralize them. Now, with this race for the North Pole ressources, we commence to appreciate the validity of military independance.

  By the way, the Brits had to cancel their best fighter project as well: the TSR2.

  But, in Canada, we never seem to value where we are the bests.

• 5. Trai  |  October 9th, 2007 at 18:59

  I have heard of this project one day from a friends fathers friend and he had told me that this plane was so fast that the paint would stretch and peel when the masterpiece was in flight but it was definatly the prime of its time but it was to big to shine and i think it could even be a partenr with the plane the F-22 raptor and fight along side with that great machine and despite the Avro’s size it was also quite manuverable

• 6. Kenneth Barber  |  October 20th, 2007 at 13:03

  Is this a real Avro Arrow or is this an exact replica?

• 7. Brave Heart  |  October 20th, 2007 at 21:33

  Its the real deal. The picture is the rollout ceremony with the public and press invited in 1957. The number RL 201 stands for Roe Limited 201. There were no prototypes. all aircraft were production machines…this the first. The first five were equiped with Westinghouse J75 engines giving it 18,000 pounds max thrust. At the time of cancellation Arrow 206 was being finished and was a week away from completion and was equiped with designed and made Iroquis engines with 25,000 pounds max thrust. This engine meant the Arrow would have far greater thrust vs weight, a feet not even matched by today’s fighters. Interesting enough, the F-14 Tomcat made approximately 12 years after the Arrow has way less thrust and its weight to thrust ratio isn’t even close to the Arrows. The Tomcat’s weight and length are comparable, and no one doubts its performance capability. However the neo-conns got in power in Canada were dishonest and vitriolic in their comments on its performance and Canadian’s abilities to design and compete with the world..Saddly it’s typical of Canada’s politians…cowards and liars – I know first hand but that’s another story. The engineers went onto other great accomplishments in other countries…they had signifigant roles in engineering: the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, Beoing 747, Concord, Apolo moon missions, and the Space Shuttle.

  For instance, the chief engineer of the Arrow became the chief engineer on the Concord, and the aeronautical engineer for the Arrow went on to accompilsih one of his dreams.he got the human race to the moon. He was signaled out as one of the main reasons they accomplished that goal, he designed the heat shield on the Apolo capsiles and the skin of the Shuttle. NASA and the Smithsonian think he was an absolute genious…Canada ignored his contributions…like so many others who became the best by going boldly forward…it reflects poorly on our dismal politicians.

  Howard Hughes called Avro Canada and its engineers the best. He offered to pay for and build what would have been the world’s first jet passenger plane in 1953 which was ready designed and made by Avro in prototype, the government interfered and refused to allow him to produce it…Britian wanted that first for themselves..they made the BAE Commet and it ultimately flew but blew up in flight!

  Floyd, the cheif engineer of the Arrow said it could manuver as good as any figter in the Western arsenal in th 1990s. The Arrow would have been protecting Canada today I have no doubt, even if altered by using technical advances made since its conception. The Arrow would have gotten better and better. That I have no doubt.

• 8. J Saunders  |  November 7th, 2007 at 16:28

  The trouble with the cancellation of the Avro Arrow and the TSR2 projects is that most western politicians and bureacrats have a pathological hatred and fear of aeronautical and rocket engineers and indeed any one who has imagination and is clever. This includes people in the medical profession. In essence, western politicians simply want to strut on the world stage trying to be important, but they are in fact wholly inadequate souls at the best of times. I don’t know of any politician/bureacrat who has contributed to any worthwhile invention in history .

• 9. Michael  |  November 8th, 2007 at 10:27

  Quoting J Saunders – “I don‚Äôt know of any politician/bureacrat who has contributed to any worthwhile invention in history.”

  I don’t know, this guy comes to mind – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

• 10. Pascal  |  November 16th, 2007 at 11:16

  Well, it should be nice to see this project back on track again! With the north pole ressources race with the Russian, and the wide country we have, it would be logical to use such advance and fast aircraft to support our sovereignty where it is needed! Also, some could be converted easily to send small payloads in space (fire and forget missiles and others) rendering them extremely usefull in the upcoming ressource conflict(s) ahead.
  Also all Canada would stand behind such project and boost nationalism needed to support the troops in Afganistan! So in short and medium terms, seeing this project out of the mothballs could send a very powerful message to the Russian and to the Canadians that we could pull it!!
  In any cases, its not our puny armed ice breakers that will scare the hell out of the Russian, even today no armed aircrafts can reach mach3!!

• 11. Guy Lapointe Nowlan  |  November 20th, 2007 at 20:34

  The tragedy of the Avro Arrow’s demise is an example of the all too common fate that our best industries eventually suffer at the hands of their own countrymen. It is a serious torn in my side, growing proud to be Canadian and joining the Armed Forces only to be squashed by other members of NATO (US mainly, RAF some, Germans – strangely the French respected us more than other nations). Numerous times, I corrected foreign nationals that the Allied Forces i.e. US, UK and Russia were not the only ones that were involved in WWII. Russia started WWII 15 days after Germany and on the side of Germany, only after Germany attacked them that they “allied” with us. A Canadian gave the design of the M-1 Garand to the US (He did not sell it like most US would do, he gave them the design for the good of humanity). We joined the War with UK but for political reasons, we served more often than not under british leadership except for sacrificial operaitons such as the Dieppe landing. We trained American pilots for the “‘Eagle Squadron) years before US entered the war, on and on… It hurts when I go to Normandy and meet Canadian who are brought (on a Canadian tour) to the US Memorial, not to our own! How about the poor recognition of our war Veterans?
  Many of our best minds moved to the US during the great “brain drain” during the 50′s to the 70′s driven South for higher salaries, lower taxes, etc… Remember the Canadian hockey athletes that were drafted in US teams, what happened to our national pride and heritage. Sadly enough and with enough lawyers coming out of our universities, we will eventually, I fear, reach the horrible litigation climate of the US…
  I am proud to be Canadian!

• 12. Brayden. l . B  |  November 25th, 2007 at 20:34

  I think the avro arrow RL 201 should rebuild better and faster then the europe F16. it can get to mock 2.5 and up to 9 Gees. the snow birds can only pull off 7.5 gees . as canadians we need better plane the keep us safe in canada. if I brayden win 40 to 50 milion dollar i would buy a group of people to help build #6 avro arrow.(RL 201) I would support a other arrow in the canadian air space.
  Thank you and lets push are goverment to build a other avro arrow for canada.

• 13. john  |  December 7th, 2007 at 09:00

  I worked on the Arrow and it has become an Canadian urban legend. Yes it was fast, but it has much too short a range for practical use. Its range was only 408 miles, its combat radius was 264 miles. For a country the size of Canada this was not good enough.

  Even for its time it was extremely UN-stealthy.

  We hated Diefenbaker with a vengeance for cancelling the Arrow but years later found out that the reward was that the U.S included ALL of Canada in any military and defense contracts as a reward for enabling commonality in aircraft. So in fact many more Canadians got jobs DUE to the Arrow cancellation.

  Nobody wantst to hear this of course. Legends are much more fun.

  The destruction of the planes and parts was of course, inexcusable.

• 14. Bill  |  January 5th, 2008 at 10:24

  how long did it take to build an avro arrow

• 15. G. Andrew  |  January 9th, 2008 at 16:05

  I am an arrowhead from way back, basically from the first time I joined a local RCAC Squadron. It is so sad to see the dreams and accomplishments of a nation that had the potential to not so much to be a superpower but to show the world of our design expertise, that could have and would have meant a significant income opportunity for us Canadians. When the avro program was shut down not only did we loose a piece of who we are but we lost that brain power to our US counterparts, a huge bennifit to them.

  I would love to see the arrow come back into production IN Canada but before that can happen we first need to get some some backbone in our government. I feel that as far as people support there would be no problem as far as Canadians having thier own plane to protect our country and service abroad and the support will be there.

  And as far as those that say that Diefenbaker was such a good priminister he had his place in what he did to a point for the west but his distaste for the east destroyed a lot of belief and pride and put us to be always behind other nations in regards to aviation and our military.

  Last point. Those who read this blog what is your belief that we can and/or should bring about production of the arrow either the same or with upgrades and if we believe this let us all stand united and push -start the political ball rolling.

  comments welcome: gtetz@hotmail.com

• 16. Howard robard Hughes III  |  January 12th, 2008 at 00:02

  IT is the same as the bac-2 or TSR2,Howard robard hughes JR got a hold of at least two of them after the project was canned.As reported in time magazine,TSR2 is the last plane ever flew same as the canada verson-Howard Hughes had a deal with the canada goverment to build them satellites and a satellite crashed in canada shortly after hughes died-some said russia shot it down.The BAC2 is what howard hughes JR flew to mex in.They flew him back in a USA jet after he was dead just to save face.He turned his BAC2 america after they turned thiers on him-at least the goverment did.The CIA never didn`t trust howard hughes.

• 17. cris  |  January 16th, 2008 at 17:13

  I`ll tell you why the arrow was dealt with the way it was. It`s because it rivaled, and outperformed any aircraft in its category not only at the time but also for over twenty years to come after that, and the manufacturer of the arrow would only recover all the invested money(design, engineering etc) , only if they sold all over the world, and were looking at doing so.

  Now the thing is that the US was shitting their pants thinking that other countries would have firepower that would take them for a ride, and combined with the fact that our government HAD NO FREAKING BALLS AND NEITHER DO THEY TODAY, led to the destruction of the most advanced interceptor of its time.

  I hope the key people that made the decision, well i hope for generations their own children lead less than mediocre lives, because so does the rest of canada`s children because of their decision.

• 18. Jason McNeil  |  January 20th, 2008 at 13:43

  Stupid relations with the americans caused the destruction of the avro arrow. At the time, Canada was ahead in all aspects with this jet. The americans were threatened by being second to Canada and were asked to destroy the jet and all the blue prints. At times, Canada should completely remove any relationship it has with the americans.

• 19. cris  |  January 24th, 2008 at 19:48

  NOT TO MENTION WE LOST ALL THE ENGINEERS THAT WORKED ON ITS DESIGN TO THE USA… WAY TO GO NUMBNUTS! WAY TO KEEP OUR BRIGHTEST IN THE COUNTRY

• 20. JoeBob  |  January 28th, 2008 at 18:17

  The troubles with the Arrow and the TSR 2 are the same troubles with the F-111 and the F-22 Raptor. Not usefull or practical. Too many features. Too many new and unproven technologies. Too many bugs to work out and an ungoddly pricetag. In singular prototype form they are mind boggling achievments. As for something usefull the military could buy in bulk (large enough numbers to have an impact and absorb losses and not a maintainence hog loaded with gold plated parts) not so impressive. As for the politics, the only reason the programs were started and took the form they took was politics. It was cruel irony that politicians who got exactly what they wanted chickened out after seeing the price tag. Rather than learn from the mistakes of our allies (the UK and Canada) we Yanks have gone and repeated history with our F-22. Sad thing is, we weren’t even smart enough to kill the pig before it ate all the food. Now we’re gonna go broke buying too few planes to replace the old ones. Meanwhile the North Koreans are attempting to buy up surplus MIG-21′s. Plentiful, simple, easy to maintain, cheap and oddly effective even today.

• 21. Howard Robard Hughes IIV MK -ultra  |  February 5th, 2008 at 14:24

  London had thier verson TSR II and those are the two that Howard Robard Hughes got.It was the last time he flew and that was to mexico.The glomar and many other leaks had showed howard hughes the real picture and he gave up defending the USA.Time showed howard robard hughes with his TRS II and I use to keep a copy of that in my billfold.Howard Hughes had the money to workxs the plane over.The brits had built better jets than anyone at some points but it was a money bag for sure.RR power plants in london jets put scotland a yard ahead,for about a bliffin split sec.

• 22. Howard hellcat hughes  |  February 5th, 2008 at 14:35

  Howard Robard Hughes JR sold satellites to canada in fact it was the 2nd country to have satellites in the world the CIA or defence dept didn`t have any problems with that.The shuttle is even based on the design as is the concord.Canada has more USA weapons than the USA has.TSR BAC II last ride for howard hughes and got two of them in london as reported in time zine.The brits had some great aircraft for a bit but now it is ALL china they~ve got the zing now and india has the largest small super jets in the world.WE need to gear up again.

• 23. Howard Robard Hughes IIV MK ultra  |  February 15th, 2008 at 20:58

  The USA ripped off the airframe to built the shuttle supersonic space plane so she`s still flying.The shuttle never crashed due to the TSR based space plane it crashed due to the rocket seals on the boster tanks… so my friends it was a winner design and got super billing as the first space plane as well as the concord super big super fast.Everyone here is right about that design everyone knows it is slippery.It seems every new spy plane is a wedge airframe,BUT where does one plane start and one plane end?,they just keep getting redesigned over and over it seems and one design runs into the next.

• 24. Beth Hildebrandt  |  February 19th, 2008 at 14:44

  Does anyone know the name of the group of retired A.V.Roe employees, and how I can contact them? Please e-mail me at bhildebrandt@sympatico.ca.

• 25. Hughes MK  |  February 21st, 2008 at 18:22

  Supersonic wedge needle nose-concorde BAC TSR and SU-24 all same class aircraft.Fight 14 of the TSA-bac II proved that it was a superjet when it when sonic.You tube has soon great concorde and TSR take off`s and tests.NO aircraft ever took off like a concorde,the noise angle and speed are rocket like.It was to fast to big and used to much fuel…to good for it`s own good!.

• 26. Bill Gibbons  |  February 25th, 2008 at 11:13

  I grew up in the UK where we had two outstanding aircraft. The first was the English Electric Lightning, which was developed from the P.1 supersonic research aircraft. The 1957 government White Paper (which proposed developing missiles and abandoning manned aircraft) thankfully did not affect the Lightning, which was too late to cancel by that time.

  The lightning flew in six variants, all in the defence interceptor role. It had an absolute mean speed of Mach 2.5 (1,500 MPH) but could exceed 1,650 mph in a shallow dive. It’s service ceiling was officially stated to be 60,000ft, but in 1987 a Mk 6 Lightning intercepted a US U2 spyplane over the UK at 88,000 ft. during wargames. During speed trails, it could beat the USAF Eagle F16 from a standing start to 50,000ft (under 2 minutes!) and in a sea-level speed trail against the F104 Starfighter, a ‘dead heat” was officially declared.

  The lightning was hampered by lack of range and versatility, but as an incredibly fast and highly manuverable all weather interceptor fighter, it remained unmatched for over 30 years. Even the US airforce pilots that flew it in pilot exchange training during the 1960′s were blown away by its performance.

  The lightning, by th way, was the very first combat aircraft to acieve “supercruise,” that is, supersonic level flight without afterburner – some 40 years before the USAF F-22 Raptor.

  Today, a private group based in Cape Town called Thunder City still fly the last four airworthy lightnings. The British government, for reasons still not clear, will now not allow Lightnings to fly in British airspace.

  The second aircraft was the TSR2, a tactical stirke aircraft that was designed to penetrate Soviet Airspace and deliver stand off nuclear tactical strike weapons (the Tornado has the same capability today). in spite of its outstanding performance during trials (leaving its Lightning chase plane behind on ONE engine!) it was cancelled like so many promising British designs of the 50′s and 60′s.

  The RAF plugged the gap by purchasing the F-4 Phantom. But the airframes had to be heavily modified to accommodate the Rolls Royce Spey engines, which had a very derogatory effect on the aircrafts performance.

  The Arrow, I believe, would have been flying today with modern avionics, perhaps in the low level strike role. Canadian aeronautical engineers were oustanding in what they were able to achieve. Just look at the Jetliner.

  I hope we see more Canadian ingenuity like this.

• 27. Michael Hasler  |  March 28th, 2008 at 12:15

  The avro arrow was one of the best planes in canada i don’t see why they had to destory the blue prints for it either they destoryed the plane tho because it was coasting the goverment to much money.

• 28. Neal  |  April 29th, 2008 at 08:39

  I have read through avast majority of arrow sites and believe there are 2 sets of specs being posted; 1 is from the test and flight data, 2 is from the American modified specsto convince Pearkes to cancel the Arrow. The requirements for the interceptor put out by DND were met or exceeded by the Arrow including range, DND range spec was 650NM. The fuel capacity of the arrow was sufficient to reach 700NM using 50% afterburner.

  The J75 engines were never run beyond 95% thrust with afterburners as the engineers wanted the iroquois to get the speed records. The fastest Arrow was Mach 1.98 at 50Kfeet and was flown a short time before Black Friday.

  The flight test data for the iroquois engine from the B47 showed that arrow 206 would be able to achieve Mach 2.5 at 50Kfeet. The complexity of the Irowuois engine was about the same as a Fuel injected v-8, or about 1/3 the service time of the f-15,16 and 18. The MTBF (mean time before failure) of the Iroquois was about 50% longer than the f-15 engines.

  IF the Arrow was allowed to go to full completion Canada would not have bought 100 F-18 Hornets as they are unable to meet the same requirement as the Arrow was asked to reach. IF the Arrow was brought to modern standards it would easily beat the F-22 Raptor in ALL areas. As things stand the Arrow beats the F-18 easily and the Arrow is 50 YEARS old and not updated like the F-18.

  I hope we will one day build an Arrow to the old flight spec and then modernize the heck out of it as it would show we still have the knowledge. Yes there are those who say we can’t build to the old spec without retesting everything which costs lots of money. How about VIRTUAL wind tunnels and Computer Design software being used today to build aircraft like the A380 ( no prototype all Computer tested ). If you cost these items out for under $20K cdn you can design build and test to completion any aircraft, not counting man hours.

  “The one that got away” was not an Arrow but, i believe, almost the testbed Iroquois on the B47. The B47 loner plane appears to have taken flight on Black Friday and was intercepted and escorted to a local Miltary field where the engine and ballast was removed before being allowed to leave. The reports of hearing an Arrow leave by many and reported by the female reporter for Macleans who was flying with the B47 on a few test flights as a civilian observer were accurate to a point. ( Put a Harley engine on a Honda frame it still sounds like a Harley! ).

  There are Canadian documents that say 1 complete Arrow “should be kept” for future reference and historical needs. IF 1 plane survived it was not in 1 piece as you can’t truck a 50foot wide plane away easily. Looking around at varius collections of Arrow bits you may notice that the parts come from up to 8 different planes. Yes 1 through 6 and the partially assembled 7 and 8 planes. The documentation for the Arrow including the blue prints and test data still exist and are slowly comming to view by those few who spend hours going through the National Archives and pulling out interesting tidbits as they find them.

  So to keep from going on forever, IF you look hard enough and are willing to risk hemroids from sitting for soooo long you can find all that is needed to build a Arrow and modernize it for the cost of time and some money for software.

  Back to the research and hunt for more Arrow stuff, hopefully I’m not the only one looking.

  Neal

• 29. SCAPE #703  |  May 11th, 2008 at 22:39

  Did anyone consider the little known fact that the Soviet Union sent spies to A.V. Roe factory in Canada? It’s a given that the Soviets were eager to capitalize on any technological advances that were developed in the West during the Cold War. (One obvious example was the high-altitude partial pressure suits.) Since the Arrow’s airframe employed a significant amount of titanium, the Soviet spies’ intention was to steal titanium fabrication manufacturing technology. Until then, titanium was a very cost-prohibitive material to fabricate. The factory did not have an adequate level of security to make it difficult for Soviet spies to infiltrate. Once espionage activity was detected at the factory, the whole program was hastily shut down scrapped: aircraft, tooling, and all!

  Odds are, if the Arrow was made operational, the technology to produce it would have inevitably fallen into Soviet hands. That in turn would have led to Soviet combat aircraft that could fly at Mach 3 and faster. Imagine how the air superiority balance of power could have shifted toward the Soviets during the Cold War!

• 30. sid  |  May 21st, 2008 at 18:08

  I went to the place where arrows were developed in Malton.
  I saw a real life arrow and it was exactly the same as these pictures. The wings are so thin. They even showed us 2 of its engines. The one I saw was a real thing but it was never tested and they took out its engine.

• 31. Keith Aburrow  |  June 1st, 2008 at 09:21

  I smell a conspiracy. Why are http://www.avroarrow.org and other Arrow sites unavailable ? The Arrow and TSR2 cancellations stink to me (I was 17 when the Arrow was cancelled).

• 32. Dan  |  June 3rd, 2008 at 17:19

  With todays Technology this aircraft could be more efficient and with a longer range than the pre existing aircraft my father was one of the engineers that built this aircraft and the panel that chose the fighter our country was to use. we lost a lot of Canadian tallent to the States when this was axed. This Arcraft could still lead to the future

• 33. Dan  |  June 20th, 2008 at 23:11

  If anyone is interested in viewing an Arrow, one was built at the Downsview Museum located in Toronto. It is an exact to scale mock up… beautiful piece.

• 34. Stu  |  July 1st, 2008 at 11:03

  Every time I watch the movie on the Arrow it just infuriates me that the powers that be were so ignorant to the people involved, 14000 people were tossed aside along with everything they accomplished like it meant nothing. It’s kind of embarrassing if you think about it, to be able to come as far as they did and do what everyone said couldn’t be done. Years later, the government, in all it’s wisdom scrapped the missle program that was supposed to replace the fighter program. Then they bought voodoo fighters from another country for an outragous amount of money, that could not perform even a 1/4 of the capability of the Arrow. I think it’s a sad story about what can happen if you let personal feelings get in the way of what really matters and what’s important.

• 35. Thomas  |  July 2nd, 2008 at 13:48

  It’s almost as if the stars aligned to stop the great arrow from becoming a well known icon. In 1/2 second a single man destroyed an entire industry. If we had kept the arrow and our arrow space industry we would have some global respect and be making our own aircraft.

• 36. madmat  |  July 25th, 2008 at 00:44

  I am as proud of the Arrow as anyone, hell, we’d all be speaking German if it wasn’t for Canada’s unfailing support of England at the beginning of WWII.
  The arrow was scrapped because it was being stolen by the Soviets. Canada was full of spies and sympathizers at that time.
  (Remember Gerda Munsinger?) No?
  The Arrow, although fast was not very agile, expense, hard on fuel and really wouldn’t have lasted very long in the jet market place. Sorry, but look at the MIG copies that look just like it. They lost their competitive edge early in the 80′s.
  By the way, those MIGs look too much like Arrows don’t they?
  The poster that said something about “Neocons” should just dry up and post somewhere else. The Liberals of that time were so far to the Right of what you believe, that you would call them neocons. It is you historical revisionists that need to get a life.

• 37. paul hubbard  |  November 24th, 2008 at 21:13

  Everything You Canadians say rings true to Brit turned Aussie. The Arrow was stopped because it was better than anything from th US, as was the TSR2, a very similar – if a bit later – British aircraft that did similar things to the Arrow.

  The thing then is the same now – you want our nuclear umbrella, folks, you better buy our systems. Period. We will sell you F4s, F111s, F16s, (not F15s and certainly not F22s!) (the Aussie govt wants them bad, but cant get them – even we, who are, like you Canadians, a very good and long term friend of the Yanks)

  So, just remember – colonialism did not end with the death of Queen Victoria – its alive and well in Washington!!!!

• 38. M. S. Gorham  |  February 5th, 2009 at 08:37

  Another point not mentioned here: There was no long-range, airborne missile system available at the time to arm Arrow. These were not available until much later. Going fast and looking good isn’t enough, weapons systems must be able to kill/destroy things too. Regarding performance, don’t forget the SR-71 was OPERATIONAL in 1966. The CIA was operating earlier variants before that. Lockheed begged the USAF to buy the fighter (YF-12) and strategic bomber versions it had developed. I’m sure those engineers cried when the US government ordered its jigs and tooling destroyed. Rockwell International found out Jimmy Carter canceled the B-1 while listening to the radio. Tens of thousands of people were told to clean out their desks that afternoon. Thankfully it was revived later. Funny though, The B-52 is currently the preferred heavy bombing platform.

  My point is, this stuff goes on all over. Obama killed the B-3 just a couple weeks ago.

• 39. dj hrynkiw  |  March 2nd, 2009 at 18:46

  I was 9 years old back when the Arrow was being built not far from where I lived in Weston Ont.I remember the pride in my neighbourhood over the Arrow and what a sad day it was when Deifenstupid shut it down.

• 40. Allan Hubbert  |  March 10th, 2009 at 23:15

  There are so many people who mourn and comment on the loss of
  the Arrow. What I wonder is if anyone is actually willing to take on a project of building an exact replica of the Arrow and how many
  people would be willing to fund this. I am sure there is at least one
  set of blueprints which survive and that some of the original
  engineers are still alive to lend their skills and knowledge. Reviving
  such an aircraft would demonstrate what we had in 1959 and just
  how much ahead of the US we were in 1959. I have often spoken
  to US fighter pilots and not one has ever heard of the Arrow and
  scoff when told just what it was capable of doing. I can’t blame them as the US is not likely to be telling them.

• 41. Pioneer  |  March 20th, 2009 at 18:27

  I think it a very sad and naive state of affairs that politicians abused their power and positions they held, when it came to such potential and capable projects like that of the BAC TSR.2, de Havilland Canada CF-105 Arrow and Lockheed F-12 / SR-71 Blackbird projects.
  For when their controversial decisions to cancel these promising and highly advanced aircraft projects were passed, it seems that there was a very vain effort to cover their controversial decisions by the assurance that not were the prototypes directed to be totally and utterly destroyed, but also the precisian machinery and jigs that would have been needed to produce these aircraft, if ever these stupid decisions were ever considered to be over turned – hence in an effort to save face about their controversial decision to cancel these aircraft, they ensured that they left a very expensive (almost prohibitive!) legacy of any thoughts of resurrecting these projects.
  And I always thought politicians were elected to serve the people!

• 42. rocker10  |  June 9th, 2009 at 18:04

  this plane could of made a us better then the states in air craft but retarded politicians canceld it because there retarded

• 43. Colby  |  June 14th, 2009 at 12:56

  This plane had to be the best, one of my father’s friend father had pieces and some original drawing’s of this mighty plane, this man knew the were about’s of the so stollen plane or is it really true that someone flew and parked the plane before it was destroyed?

• 44. aardwolf 2000  |  July 15th, 2009 at 22:45

  “the cancelation of the contract took him and 14,000 others out of work”…

  LOL

• 45. Scott_G  |  October 18th, 2009 at 19:30

  Lets lobby the Gov’t and make something out of this. Like a Arrow that can reach the space station. It would take the next step which it was already close too. We need to put a hand into space not just an arm.
  –
  Bring back the dream and a national project would be good for all industry and national vision and Science.

• 46. Murray B from Alberta  |  April 16th, 2010 at 16:32

  The Arrow has been one of the most divisive in our history and continues to be so.

  For fifty years most Canadians have been blaming the wrong guys. Diefenbaker was not behind the cancellation, the Chiefs of Staff were. All the government did was take their recommendation.

  Diefenbaker’s Government was also doing everthing in their power to save those jobs in Ontario.

  From the Montreal Star Feb. 24 1959,”Prime Minister Diefenbaker says the A.V. Roe (Canada) Ltd. layoff of 14,000 workers Friday was done to embarrass the Government…the company had warning of the Government decision to Cancel the CF-105 Arrow supersonic interceptor and knew that $50,000,000 in public funds had been set aside in the estimate for winding-up expenses…”I say that the its attitude in letting out thousands of workers – technical workers and employes – on Friday was so cavalier, so unreasonable, that the only conclusion any fair-minded person can come to is that it was done for purpose of embarrassing the Government.”"

  All of this is confirmed by Cabinet minutes. $50 million should have allowed Avro to make its payroll until more work could be found for the company.

  So who is really to blame for “burning down” the industry and wiping out the careers of all those people for no good reason?

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