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Almost every Canadian knows the sad story of Avro Arrow, yet most people in the rest of the world, including the US, have never heard of it. There are people in

Almost every Canadian knows the sad story of Avro Arrow, yet most people in the rest of the world, including the US, have never heard of it. There are people in search of what is left of the program. https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/07/18/the-arrow-legend-mystery-intrigue-search-for-last-artefacts/ https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/07/18/the-arrow-legend-mystery...

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's pretty well known in aviation circles in the UK. Three aircraft inevitably come up if any one, or simply idiotic cancellations are mentioned: TSR2, P1154 (Supersonic Harrier), Avro Arrow. I'm really pleased he chose to perform an offsite backup of the plans ordered destroyed...
- alex_anglin 7y ago
  Canadian here and certainly have heard of the Avro Arrow. The thing that isn't often discussed is how it was designed and built as an interceptor for long range bombers. With the advent of ICBMs, it's strategic purpose was called in to question.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Yeah we don’t have many great purely Canadian engineering + patriotic accomplishments which to parade around so much like CanadaArm it gets plenty of reverence locally (not to downplay the plenty of other Canadian tech and engineering exports, especially talent wise, but there’s a unique subsection of tech which crosses into government and cultural significance, which is the niche group I’m referencing). Plus the whole “what could have been” allure to the story which made for some great TV shows and written accounts.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - core-questions 7y ago
    The problem here is typically Canadian: we looked stupidly at the short term usefulness of this immediate technology, saw no real market, and decided to cut it all off to "save money" instead of believing in the value of the engineering culture and technological developments for their own sake. Make and produce the Arrow, use it as a "halo" product, and trickle its technologies down into the other commercially viable models - this is something car companies do with concepts / supercars. The typical Canadian thing to do is to not believe in our own ability to create novel technology, and to let our tech companies hang out to dry when problems come along. Nortel, RIM Blackberry, Avro, and countless others. Now we have General Fusion and D-Wave and other homegrown tech companies, continuing to push the envelope; how long until we decide once again to not believe in our own abilities and just give up once more?
    - dleslie 7y ago
      It seems to depend largely on how dependent on Government dollars the company is; there are Canadian success stories, but many of them are not critically tied to Government budgets. It's become worse over time, of course; we can hardly build new schools or subways any longer, let alone fund multi-billion dollar halo projects.
      - cik 7y ago
        These are exactly the reasons behind the differences in eastern and western Canada. In the prairies we have a far more "do it yourself, screw government" attitude - for good or for bad. You've also described quite clearly one of the multitude of reasons we're leaving Canada shortly.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      RIM had novel technology: software. But it didn’t realize it and doubled down on hardware. Result: WhatsApp instead of BBM filled the void of cross-platform text communications. WhatsApp was sold for >5x RIM’s total current market value.
      - L_Rahman 7y ago
  - nas 7y ago
    Right. It was meant to intercept Soviet bombers coming from the North. For other purposes, like air superiority, it would have been ill suited. People thinking it could be resurrected as an alternative to the F-35 are wildly confused. If you compare the specs with contemporary aircraft (like the English Electric Lighting) the Arrow is impressive but not vastly superior. The "brain drain" after the cancellation of the program seems the biggest tragedy to me.
    - walshemj 7y ago
      Well the original Lighting was the me 163 done right point defence fighter with 8 min of fuel at full gas
      - sgt101 7y ago
        But what an eight minutes! Amusingly the other English electric product line was washing machines. I doubt these generated as much excitement!
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Yet the Soviets kept on producing those prop powered Tupolev Tu95 Bears and others well into the 80s, and Putin started patrols and the intercept game up once again. Think they've now been repurposed as cruise missile launchers as well as bomber. So the Lightning kept flying into the 80s, then Phantoms and eventually Eurofighter Typhoons would be going to play with the Bear nearing airspace. The intercept role was expected to disappear, but hasn't. The newest intercept role is the surprisingly frequent post 9/11 intercepts of civilian airliners that go silent or otherwise raise suspicion. UK has Typhoons going supersonic over land every few months. So despite expectation, it never quite went away. You're right about the brain drain, but it would have been nice to see Avro continue, and no doubt had they been building Arrows there would have been a more air superiority/longer range mark III -- they did already have mkIII plans, and ideas for even faster, after all -- as roles adapted. Above all, Avro Canada might still be in existence and competitive.
      - WalterBright 7y ago
- patrickyeon 7y ago
  > I'm really pleased he chose to perform an offsite backup of the plans ordered destroyed... So am I. It's bittersweet that this is so appreciated now, when it could very well have been treated as espionage at the time.
- walshemj 7y ago
  I went on a school trip to Cranfield university in the late 70's and they had the one remaining TSR2 stored in the Back of one of the Hangers looking sad with its wings off. The TSR2 was famous for walking away from a EE lightning on one engine.
schwap 7y ago
Eh, almost every Canadian knows the made-for-TV movie version of the story. I'm glad this piece of history survived, though!
- markandrewj 7y ago
  Straight to TV, but it also has Dan Aykroyd in it.
DanCarvajal 7y ago
So it's like the Bluenose of aircraft?
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  But not on any coins (yet?).
bitwize 7y ago
I'd heard of it. I was an aviation nerd as a kid and saw programs about it and the XB-70 Valkyrie, a promising US bomber cancelled for similar reasons (missile technology shifting the Cold War away from manned aircraft as primary nuclear defense/offense) on the Discovery Channel. Avro Canada also developed the Avrocar, an experimental, literal flying saucer powered by a single turbofan in the middle. Cold War aviation was NUTS.
byron_fast 7y ago
Even fewer Canadians understand why the U.S. didn't trust Canada with such an able aircraft. It's destruction was, sadly, the right choice.
- kejaed 7y ago
  Any references as to why they didn’t ?
  - byron_fast 7y ago
    The obvious, that it was "too expensive" like Israel's Lavi program: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/avro-iarrowi-there-never-was-an-iarrowi-feature https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/avro-iarro... But there was the idea that the CIA didn't trust Canada to not sell it to an enemy of the USA. If the Arrow had existed under P. Trudeau, that was a justified fear.
  - warlog 7y ago
    ..and then eventually, having no aerospace program, Canada goes on to buy F18s from America. I think the Arrow was an economic threat couched in strategic language. The arrow was kick-ass long before 14s, 15s, 16s,18s entered the science. And yes, they have different mission scenarios, but like Avro wouldn't have owned that space. #disgruntledCanadian
    - hnaccy 7y ago
      How is it an economic threat when the US had the f-106 which was superior and flying sooner?
- na85 7y ago
  That's a myth. The US government was offered the chance to buy the Arrow and all its intellectual property but declined. It was a promising design but it was not the world-beating wonderplane that its reputation suggests.
  - 7y ago
markandrewj 7y ago
Many of the people involved ended up being influential in other ways as well that rarely gets any credit. https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/meet-the-canadians-who-helped-america-win-the-race-to-land-a-man-on-the-moon-1.4513803 https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/meet-the-canadians-who-helpe...
milankragujevic 7y ago
Heard about it, in Serbia, from my little brother studying aviation engineering in a civil-military-partnership school. It's rather well known.
dadarepublic 7y ago
As a child of midwest America, I was really into jets and I would also build models of them - The Avro Arrow was one of my favorite models that I had built. It looked awesome! Too bad the model didn't survive my childhood play - I believe it was broken on some epic mission in our backyard - great times!

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It's pretty well known in aviation circles in the UK. Three aircraft inevitably come up if any one, or simply idiotic cancellations are mentioned: TSR2, P1154 (Supersonic Harrier), Avro Arrow. I'm really pleased he chose to perform an offsite backup of the plans ordered destroyed...

alex_anglin 7y ago
Canadian here and certainly have heard of the Avro Arrow. The thing that isn't often discussed is how it was designed and built as an interceptor for long range bombers. With the advent of ICBMs, it's strategic purpose was called in to question.
- dmix 7y ago
  Yeah we don’t have many great purely Canadian engineering + patriotic accomplishments which to parade around so much like CanadaArm it gets plenty of reverence locally (not to downplay the plenty of other Canadian tech and engineering exports, especially talent wise, but there’s a unique subsection of tech which crosses into government and cultural significance, which is the niche group I’m referencing). Plus the whole “what could have been” allure to the story which made for some great TV shows and written accounts.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- core-questions 7y ago
  The problem here is typically Canadian: we looked stupidly at the short term usefulness of this immediate technology, saw no real market, and decided to cut it all off to "save money" instead of believing in the value of the engineering culture and technological developments for their own sake. Make and produce the Arrow, use it as a "halo" product, and trickle its technologies down into the other commercially viable models - this is something car companies do with concepts / supercars. The typical Canadian thing to do is to not believe in our own ability to create novel technology, and to let our tech companies hang out to dry when problems come along. Nortel, RIM Blackberry, Avro, and countless others. Now we have General Fusion and D-Wave and other homegrown tech companies, continuing to push the envelope; how long until we decide once again to not believe in our own abilities and just give up once more?
  - dleslie 7y ago
    It seems to depend largely on how dependent on Government dollars the company is; there are Canadian success stories, but many of them are not critically tied to Government budgets. It's become worse over time, of course; we can hardly build new schools or subways any longer, let alone fund multi-billion dollar halo projects.
    - cik 7y ago
      These are exactly the reasons behind the differences in eastern and western Canada. In the prairies we have a far more "do it yourself, screw government" attitude - for good or for bad. You've also described quite clearly one of the multitude of reasons we're leaving Canada shortly.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    RIM had novel technology: software. But it didn’t realize it and doubled down on hardware. Result: WhatsApp instead of BBM filled the void of cross-platform text communications. WhatsApp was sold for >5x RIM’s total current market value.
    - L_Rahman 7y ago
- nas 7y ago
  Right. It was meant to intercept Soviet bombers coming from the North. For other purposes, like air superiority, it would have been ill suited. People thinking it could be resurrected as an alternative to the F-35 are wildly confused. If you compare the specs with contemporary aircraft (like the English Electric Lighting) the Arrow is impressive but not vastly superior. The "brain drain" after the cancellation of the program seems the biggest tragedy to me.
  - walshemj 7y ago
    Well the original Lighting was the me 163 done right point defence fighter with 8 min of fuel at full gas
    - sgt101 7y ago
      But what an eight minutes! Amusingly the other English electric product line was washing machines. I doubt these generated as much excitement!
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Yet the Soviets kept on producing those prop powered Tupolev Tu95 Bears and others well into the 80s, and Putin started patrols and the intercept game up once again. Think they've now been repurposed as cruise missile launchers as well as bomber. So the Lightning kept flying into the 80s, then Phantoms and eventually Eurofighter Typhoons would be going to play with the Bear nearing airspace. The intercept role was expected to disappear, but hasn't. The newest intercept role is the surprisingly frequent post 9/11 intercepts of civilian airliners that go silent or otherwise raise suspicion. UK has Typhoons going supersonic over land every few months. So despite expectation, it never quite went away. You're right about the brain drain, but it would have been nice to see Avro continue, and no doubt had they been building Arrows there would have been a more air superiority/longer range mark III -- they did already have mkIII plans, and ideas for even faster, after all -- as roles adapted. Above all, Avro Canada might still be in existence and competitive.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
patrickyeon 7y ago
> I'm really pleased he chose to perform an offsite backup of the plans ordered destroyed... So am I. It's bittersweet that this is so appreciated now, when it could very well have been treated as espionage at the time.
walshemj 7y ago
I went on a school trip to Cranfield university in the late 70's and they had the one remaining TSR2 stored in the Back of one of the Hangers looking sad with its wings off. The TSR2 was famous for walking away from a EE lightning on one engine.

schwap 7y ago

Eh, almost every Canadian knows the made-for-TV movie version of the story. I'm glad this piece of history survived, though!

markandrewj 7y ago
Straight to TV, but it also has Dan Aykroyd in it.

DanCarvajal 7y ago

So it's like the Bluenose of aircraft?

Scoundreller 7y ago
But not on any coins (yet?).

bitwize 7y ago

I'd heard of it. I was an aviation nerd as a kid and saw programs about it and the XB-70 Valkyrie, a promising US bomber cancelled for similar reasons (missile technology shifting the Cold War away from manned aircraft as primary nuclear defense/offense) on the Discovery Channel. Avro Canada also developed the Avrocar, an experimental, literal flying saucer powered by a single turbofan in the middle. Cold War aviation was NUTS.

byron_fast 7y ago

Even fewer Canadians understand why the U.S. didn't trust Canada with such an able aircraft. It's destruction was, sadly, the right choice.

kejaed 7y ago
Any references as to why they didn’t ?
- byron_fast 7y ago
  The obvious, that it was "too expensive" like Israel's Lavi program: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/avro-iarrowi-there-never-was-an-iarrowi-feature https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/avro-iarro... But there was the idea that the CIA didn't trust Canada to not sell it to an enemy of the USA. If the Arrow had existed under P. Trudeau, that was a justified fear.
- warlog 7y ago
  ..and then eventually, having no aerospace program, Canada goes on to buy F18s from America. I think the Arrow was an economic threat couched in strategic language. The arrow was kick-ass long before 14s, 15s, 16s,18s entered the science. And yes, they have different mission scenarios, but like Avro wouldn't have owned that space. #disgruntledCanadian
  - hnaccy 7y ago
    How is it an economic threat when the US had the f-106 which was superior and flying sooner?
na85 7y ago
That's a myth. The US government was offered the chance to buy the Arrow and all its intellectual property but declined. It was a promising design but it was not the world-beating wonderplane that its reputation suggests.
- 7y ago

markandrewj 7y ago

Many of the people involved ended up being influential in other ways as well that rarely gets any credit. https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/meet-the-canadians-who-helped-america-win-the-race-to-land-a-man-on-the-moon-1.4513803 https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/meet-the-canadians-who-helpe...

milankragujevic 7y ago

Heard about it, in Serbia, from my little brother studying aviation engineering in a civil-military-partnership school. It's rather well known.

dadarepublic 7y ago

As a child of midwest America, I was really into jets and I would also build models of them - The Avro Arrow was one of my favorite models that I had built. It looked awesome! Too bad the model didn't survive my childhood play - I believe it was broken on some epic mission in our backyard - great times!