19 ms·

> The record-breaking jet which still haunts a country That's no exaggeration. For English Canada, the destruction of those planes was a trauma that lasts to t

> The record-breaking jet which still haunts a country That's no exaggeration. For English Canada, the destruction of those planes was a trauma that lasts to this day because the Arrow represented the height of national pride, and their destruction the deepest low. Similar but lesser feelings for the A220, sold by Bombardier for $1 to Airbus because Boeing lobbied for a 219.63% tariff on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220 https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/news/companies/bombardier-boeing-cseries-delta-itc-ruling/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/news/companies/bombardier-b... Canadians are polite, but they can kick ass when they want to.

deskamess 6y ago
Based on the number (220) I thought this was some ancient Airbus model. Well.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Not how airbus numbering works, in general. The A400 is older than the A350, for instance. The first was the A300, and at that point the number was supposed to mean the passenger number, though as it turned out there wasn't much demand for a 300 passenger wide body at the time and it was scaled down. After that, the numbers became more or less random.
kitteh 6y ago
The A220 was the plane that not many folks wanted. Purely due to union / regional scoping rules. It was too large for regionals, too small for mainline. For example many airline union scoping contracts require planes with more than 70 or 100 pax go to mainline which means it will cost more to operate. Airlines don't want to do that. If it's going mainline, they want more seats (think 737/a320 ranges) which the A220 doesn't have. There's a somewhat famous post from a Bombardier product manager on the internet detailing the history of the aircrafts evolution that played out like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle in The Pentagon Wars. Despite marketing data and customer feedback saying don't build this they kept pushing ahead and the Quebec tax payer footing some of that bill.
- happycube 6y ago
  A lot of folks seem to want it now, though...
- gsnedders 6y ago
  > Purely due to union / regional scoping rules. These aren't significant outside of the US market. And okay, the US market is a significant market for aircraft, but by way of comparison most of the major orders of the larger E-Jets have been non-US airlines. The A220 has a very big order book for an aircraft of its size.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Indeed, they're surprisingly fuel efficient and have crazy range for their size. You can fly a CS3/A220-300 across the Atlantic from the east coast without any trouble.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  It has 52 billion dollars worth of orders right now, interestingly.
49para 6y ago
I don't have any trauma from the Arrow but I do have resentment on the amount of corporate bailout $$$ given to Bombardier with no return.
JohnBooty 6y ago
For English Canada, the destruction of those planes was a trauma that lasts to this day because the Arrow represented the height of national pride, and their destruction the deepest low. I'm neither Canadian nor Japanese, but there may be parallels to how Japanese felt about the loss of the battleship Yamato (and her sister ship, Musashi) in WWII. An underdog nation, with pride in "punching above its weight class", placed a lot of hope and pride in a single piece of military hardware. It was the largest battleship ever built, key to the Japanese strategy in WWII. American battleships' guns and armor were limited by the need for American battleships to fit through the Panama Canal. Knowing this, Japan built the much larger Yamato class with armor impervious to the 16" guns on American battleships. Her 18" guns could cut through any American battleship with ease. The Yamato was really a marvel. Of course, it was utterly useless in battle against the American navy. Its WWI-era fire control systems were decades behind those of American battleships, especially the Iowa class, and of course more importantly WWII showed the world that battleships were helpless against naval air superiority. The Yamato was sunk by American planes, having never fired a shot against an opposing battleship. The Yamato has remained in Japanese imagination, though, most notably in the long-running anime Uchu Senkan Yamato / Space Battleship Yamato / "Star Blazers".
- beamatronic 6y ago
  Was that the one where the captain let’s out a big sigh, pushed a button, and the ship takes off into space?
  - jcun4128 6y ago
    After being buried under a dessert for who knows how long
    - a_t48 6y ago
      I dunno about the sigh, but you're spot on with the desert. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jsrOqlGSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jsrOqlGSk
valuearb 6y ago
Canceling the Arrow was probably the best thing to happen to Canada. Why tie up huge resources and your top engineers building a fighter that was far too expensive and poorly designed for battlefields of the future?
- pjkundert 6y ago
  Yes, much better that these engineers and technicians mostly departed to other nations, or went on to build canoes or pots and pans, as good Canadians should.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Or now work for Pratt and Whitney Canada, for a wage inferior to that of US engineers, making engines that we then buy while the profits go to the US.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      I don't see why they simply wouldn't go work in the US if that was the case. Unless they aren't qualified enough.
      - SECProto 6y ago
        I can think of a number of good reasons why someone would want to live in Canada and not the US
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        "just move", basically. This is an absurd argument at the scale of a country, and even more absurd at an international scale. If they weren't qualified the industry wouldn't have been poached. Rather, this suggests that at least at some point they were significantly more qualified than those in the US.
        908B64B197 6y ago
hervature 6y ago
Maybe for your generation. For younger generations, it only haunts us as something every student learns in grade 10 Canadian history class. The same way Mary Pickford haunts us as "America's Sweetheart".
908B64B197 6y ago
> Similar but lesser feelings for the A220, sold by Bombardier for $1 to Airbus because Boeing lobbied for a 219.63% tariff on it. It's arguably worst. The Avro was a cool paper project (it is ultimately unknown if it could even achieve the projected performance since no flights were performed anywhere close to the claimed speeds), while the A220 was a complete airliner project with a production line. The Avro didn't serve any purpose, it was rendered obsolete by ICBMs and 50's soviet technology, while the A220 has $52 billion dollars worth of orders as of 2020. While there was very little the Canadian government could do to save the Arrow, other than maybe building it as a training aircraft, it was 100% possible for the Government to save Bombardier and the A220 program. Of course, the company being headquartered in Quebec made it politically impossible.
- louniks 6y ago
  Playing devil's advocate for a bit, would the A220 have accumulated so many orders had it not been backed by Airbus? The program was clearly in trouble when Airbus took over, which may have discouraged airlines from taking a chance on a great aircraft, but whose manufacturer ran the risk of running out of money to keep the program going.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > Playing devil's advocate for a bit, would the A220 have accumulated so many orders had it not been backed by Airbus? Yes, totally. Delta alone had ordered 75 CS100's [1] and were deeply involved in the tariff dispute as a result. It's a unique plane -- in size class, in passenger comfort and in fuel economy. Airlines realized that and were buying it up like hotcakes. Neither Airbus nor Boeing had competitive aircraft, and neither really did Embraer. It's closer to the Sukhoi SuperJet and some of the Comacs, but reliable [2], and domestic. The only reason Airbus got it was they offered up their Mobile, Alabama assembly plant as a way of skirting the tariffs that never materialized. > The program was clearly in trouble when Airbus took over, which may have discouraged airlines from taking a chance on a great aircraft, but whose manufacturer ran the risk of running out of money to keep the program going. The program wasn't itself in any trouble except for the later-ruled-illegal tariffs the US tried to impose at Boeing's request. [1] https://news.delta.com/tags/bombardier-cs100 https://news.delta.com/tags/bombardier-cs100 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/mexico-s-interjet-grounds-four-planes-stoking-lessor-anxiety https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/mexico-s-...
rasz 6y ago
Canadian developed Ebola vaccine was sold for $150K to middleman, who turned around and resold it to Merck for $50 million.

deskamess 6y ago

Based on the number (220) I thought this was some ancient Airbus model. Well.

rsynnott 6y ago
Not how airbus numbering works, in general. The A400 is older than the A350, for instance. The first was the A300, and at that point the number was supposed to mean the passenger number, though as it turned out there wasn't much demand for a 300 passenger wide body at the time and it was scaled down. After that, the numbers became more or less random.

kitteh 6y ago

The A220 was the plane that not many folks wanted. Purely due to union / regional scoping rules. It was too large for regionals, too small for mainline. For example many airline union scoping contracts require planes with more than 70 or 100 pax go to mainline which means it will cost more to operate. Airlines don't want to do that. If it's going mainline, they want more seats (think 737/a320 ranges) which the A220 doesn't have. There's a somewhat famous post from a Bombardier product manager on the internet detailing the history of the aircrafts evolution that played out like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle in The Pentagon Wars. Despite marketing data and customer feedback saying don't build this they kept pushing ahead and the Quebec tax payer footing some of that bill.

happycube 6y ago
A lot of folks seem to want it now, though...
gsnedders 6y ago
> Purely due to union / regional scoping rules. These aren't significant outside of the US market. And okay, the US market is a significant market for aircraft, but by way of comparison most of the major orders of the larger E-Jets have been non-US airlines. The A220 has a very big order book for an aircraft of its size.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Indeed, they're surprisingly fuel efficient and have crazy range for their size. You can fly a CS3/A220-300 across the Atlantic from the east coast without any trouble.
908B64B197 6y ago
It has 52 billion dollars worth of orders right now, interestingly.

49para 6y ago

I don't have any trauma from the Arrow but I do have resentment on the amount of corporate bailout $$$ given to Bombardier with no return.

JohnBooty 6y ago

For English Canada, the destruction of those planes was a trauma that lasts to this day because the Arrow represented the height of national pride, and their destruction the deepest low. I'm neither Canadian nor Japanese, but there may be parallels to how Japanese felt about the loss of the battleship Yamato (and her sister ship, Musashi) in WWII. An underdog nation, with pride in "punching above its weight class", placed a lot of hope and pride in a single piece of military hardware. It was the largest battleship ever built, key to the Japanese strategy in WWII. American battleships' guns and armor were limited by the need for American battleships to fit through the Panama Canal. Knowing this, Japan built the much larger Yamato class with armor impervious to the 16" guns on American battleships. Her 18" guns could cut through any American battleship with ease. The Yamato was really a marvel. Of course, it was utterly useless in battle against the American navy. Its WWI-era fire control systems were decades behind those of American battleships, especially the Iowa class, and of course more importantly WWII showed the world that battleships were helpless against naval air superiority. The Yamato was sunk by American planes, having never fired a shot against an opposing battleship. The Yamato has remained in Japanese imagination, though, most notably in the long-running anime Uchu Senkan Yamato / Space Battleship Yamato / "Star Blazers".

beamatronic 6y ago
Was that the one where the captain let’s out a big sigh, pushed a button, and the ship takes off into space?
- jcun4128 6y ago
  After being buried under a dessert for who knows how long
  - a_t48 6y ago
    I dunno about the sigh, but you're spot on with the desert. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jsrOqlGSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jsrOqlGSk

valuearb 6y ago

Canceling the Arrow was probably the best thing to happen to Canada. Why tie up huge resources and your top engineers building a fighter that was far too expensive and poorly designed for battlefields of the future?

pjkundert 6y ago
Yes, much better that these engineers and technicians mostly departed to other nations, or went on to build canoes or pots and pans, as good Canadians should.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Or now work for Pratt and Whitney Canada, for a wage inferior to that of US engineers, making engines that we then buy while the profits go to the US.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    I don't see why they simply wouldn't go work in the US if that was the case. Unless they aren't qualified enough.
    - SECProto 6y ago
      I can think of a number of good reasons why someone would want to live in Canada and not the US
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      "just move", basically. This is an absurd argument at the scale of a country, and even more absurd at an international scale. If they weren't qualified the industry wouldn't have been poached. Rather, this suggests that at least at some point they were significantly more qualified than those in the US.
      - 908B64B197 6y ago

hervature 6y ago

Maybe for your generation. For younger generations, it only haunts us as something every student learns in grade 10 Canadian history class. The same way Mary Pickford haunts us as "America's Sweetheart".

908B64B197 6y ago

> Similar but lesser feelings for the A220, sold by Bombardier for $1 to Airbus because Boeing lobbied for a 219.63% tariff on it. It's arguably worst. The Avro was a cool paper project (it is ultimately unknown if it could even achieve the projected performance since no flights were performed anywhere close to the claimed speeds), while the A220 was a complete airliner project with a production line. The Avro didn't serve any purpose, it was rendered obsolete by ICBMs and 50's soviet technology, while the A220 has $52 billion dollars worth of orders as of 2020. While there was very little the Canadian government could do to save the Arrow, other than maybe building it as a training aircraft, it was 100% possible for the Government to save Bombardier and the A220 program. Of course, the company being headquartered in Quebec made it politically impossible.

louniks 6y ago
Playing devil's advocate for a bit, would the A220 have accumulated so many orders had it not been backed by Airbus? The program was clearly in trouble when Airbus took over, which may have discouraged airlines from taking a chance on a great aircraft, but whose manufacturer ran the risk of running out of money to keep the program going.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > Playing devil's advocate for a bit, would the A220 have accumulated so many orders had it not been backed by Airbus? Yes, totally. Delta alone had ordered 75 CS100's [1] and were deeply involved in the tariff dispute as a result. It's a unique plane -- in size class, in passenger comfort and in fuel economy. Airlines realized that and were buying it up like hotcakes. Neither Airbus nor Boeing had competitive aircraft, and neither really did Embraer. It's closer to the Sukhoi SuperJet and some of the Comacs, but reliable [2], and domestic. The only reason Airbus got it was they offered up their Mobile, Alabama assembly plant as a way of skirting the tariffs that never materialized. > The program was clearly in trouble when Airbus took over, which may have discouraged airlines from taking a chance on a great aircraft, but whose manufacturer ran the risk of running out of money to keep the program going. The program wasn't itself in any trouble except for the later-ruled-illegal tariffs the US tried to impose at Boeing's request. [1] https://news.delta.com/tags/bombardier-cs100 https://news.delta.com/tags/bombardier-cs100 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/mexico-s-interjet-grounds-four-planes-stoking-lessor-anxiety https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/mexico-s-...

rasz 6y ago

Canadian developed Ebola vaccine was sold for $150K to middleman, who turned around and resold it to Merck for $50 million.