Fall of an Arrow

by Murray Peden

On February 20, 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker announced to the House of Commons the cancellation of the CF-105 Arrow. Its development costs to that time were $340 million. The Arrow was to be the world's unsurpassed interceptor aircraft. Yet within two months of the Prime Minister's announcement, six completed aircraft were dismantled and all papers and documents associated with the project were destroyed.

Here is the history and development of the Arrow - the plane that would make Canada the leader in supersonic flight technology. The Arrow was designed to fly at twice the speed of sound and carry the most advanced missile weapons system.

Here are the stories of the men and women who were in the vanguard of the new technology - who had come from England, Poland, and the United States to make aviation history.

192 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 1987

Reviews

[David Czuba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peden probes the underlying reasons for the cancellation of a technically advanced aircraft developed indigenously in Canada. It's clear early on that besides being a political error based on an unsound economic logic, and not a strategic one, it was both an era and singular episode that should instruct us all. Twenty years ahead of its time, the AVRO Arrow project was a fly-by-wire, advanced interceptor meant to shoot down Russian bombers with air-to-air missiles before the bombers could even approach, let alone deliver, nuclear warheads to North American soil.

As designed for Mach 2.5 flight and fitted with state-of-the-art firing and munitions, the Arrow was well-equipped to handle the job. It's sleek delta wing and thin airfoil made correct dynamic use of supersonic flight, breaking up the vortices that billow past the shearing of air at high speeds. Long before software allowed engineers to design similar equipment, the Arrow's lines were clean and fabricated to small tolerances. The impossibly thin wing held fuel, landing gear, and elongated metal flap controls passing through the structure. The Sparrow II missiles intended for it were at the cutting edge and reliably accurate. The powerful Iroquois engines to power the plane, made by Orenda, were incomparable, far beyond what was then being made by Rolls-Royce, General Electric, or Pratt & Whitney.

The cancellation came at a perilous time in the Cold War, when Russian and American weapons development were well into an arms race, a race to build bigger nuclear weapons and means to deliver them. The Arrow might not have been able to counter an ICBM launched from Russian soil, but that wasn't what it was designed to do, and no automatic countermeasure could do the job. More than a side note, the Arrow broached the subject of manned versus automated systems. Once cancelled, the highly skilled workers were largely absorbed by the American and UK aerospace industries. Key figures contributed to the Gemini and Apollo programs.

Peden does get repetitive, yet rises occasionally to a crescendo and sometimes goes apoplectic with a strange analogy thrown in. Not to worry. In short order, he settles back into a studious monologue.

The Arrow represents an achievement stymied by strategic ignorance, weak thinking and shortsightedness. The aircraft (there were 6 built) was literally cut up with acetylene torches with the official line being to protect its proprietary nature. But in reality, the Arrow fell to the altar of economics and government penny-pinching. This story serves as an ardent lesson to governments everywhere the price to be paid for lack of political courage. What a loss.

[Tilly Wark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Avro Arrow is to Canadian Aviators the way the Library of Alexandria is to book lovers. I'm still bitter over the Arrow's destruction, and I will never be over it.

This book made me feel pride in having the best damn aircraft the world had ever seen, and copious amounts of rage at its demise. Canada was among the world's technological heavyweights, and Diefenbaker brought us back to rock bottom in one fell swoop. I read this at work on my lunch breaks. Keeping the screaming inside my head as our aviation industry was ripped apart was a challenge.

If you're interested in history, politics, aviation, or all of the above, you might enjoy (and loathe) this tale of the most sophisticated, beautiful aircraft ever created anywhere.

And if you've ever wondered why NASA's shuttle looks so similar, or how man made his way to the moon, you have discarded Canadian engineers, designers, and geniuses to thank.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good history of Dief’s blunder, but a bit of a dry read.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad part of our history. More Tory state vandalism.