Avro Arrow RL-206

[dapaterson]

If they didn't, they weren't doing their job.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They had spies in almost every other program, so why not?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

A few posters commented about the destruction of the Arrows including plans, models, etc. However, in the book Spycatcher, author and retired British spook stated that there was a communist spy in the Avro program. I cannot confirm the veracity of his claim but perhaps there was industrial spys, or agents...

Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987) is a memoir written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass.

So, what are you trying to say? That the only set of Arrow plans or models in existence are in the Russian intelligence files?  ;D

Besides, the MI5 of those days would know everything about soviet spies, wouldn't they? 

 

[expwor]

The plans were sitting in a Saskatchewan man's home for years according to this CBC story

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saved-avro-arrow-blueprints-ordered-destroyed-1.5416554

Tom

 

[shawn5o]

So, what are you trying to say? That the only set of Arrow plans or models in existence are in the Russian intelligence files?  ;D

Besides, the MI5 of those days would know everything about soviet spies, wouldn't they? 

Maybe you should re-read my post  8)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I believe so

 

[a_majoor]

Nice cutaway drawing here:

 

[shawn5o]

The more research one does into it, the more that they'll find out it was far from the exact story as told on the CBC's Arrow movie production.

Diefenbaker wasn't anywhere near as evil as he appeared to be, and arguably even try to salvage some of it.

To keep the performance you always hear about they'd have to refuel almost constantly with the day's technology, and none of the other systems that it was supposed to use were ready anyway.

Yes it is still something to be proud of as a Canadian and yes it was a great jet for its day, but to suggest that we'd still be flying them today is crazy.

At most it could have been viewed as the father of something like the F4 Phantom, but those aren't exactly first line anymore and they were a decade newer.

I'm as big of a fan of them as anyone...I've got the $20 coin, the Sushu painting/print, the posters, the models, etc, but let us be realistic here and not base our opinions on some docutainment.

Just like every other front line fighter (F22, F35), you almost break the bank of the country if you try to research and build these things unless you're at war.

It was a joke at the CF (RCAF). Because DND is notoriously slow at acquiring new kit. For instance, my old Deuce and a half was two years older than me back in the early 70s, however, I cannot remember when Bombadier replaced the Deuce. I think that the CF still uses the M-113.

 

[shawn5o]

deleted

 

[Weinie]

It was a joke at the CF (RCAF). Because DND is notoriously slow at acquiring new kit. For instance, my old Deuce and a half was two years older than me back in the early 70s, however, I cannot remember when Bombadier replaced the Deuce. I think that the CF still uses the M-113.

Yeah, but it is the M-113 B.

 

[shawn5o]

This is or seems to be heresy according to some arrow detractors

Broken Arrow - Legion Magazine

Brilliant and blazingly fast, the CF-105 was ahead of its time—and short-lived. In 1953, the Royal Canadian Air Force commissioned the A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. aircraft manufacturing company in Malton, Ont., to design and build a fighter plane that could operate in any weather, fly at twice the...

legionmagazine.com

• March 1, 2021
• by Brent Douglas Dyck

Brilliant and blazingly fast, the CF-105 was ahead of its time—and short-lived​

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, there was a growing concern that Soviet bombers would attack North America via the shortest route, over the Canadian Arctic. NATO intelligence suggested that such an attack could occur as early as 1954.

So, in 1953, the Royal Canadian Air Force commissioned the A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. aircraft manufacturing company in Malton, Ont., to design and build a fighter plane that could operate in any weather, fly at twice the speed of sound, execute a 2G turn at 50,000 feet without losing speed or altitude, and fire a missile at oncoming bombers. It was, at the time, the most demanding specification in the world, and many international manufacturers believed it couldn’t be done.

The new plane, called the Avro Arrow, was built by one of A.V. Roe’s two aviation subsidiaries: Avro Aircraft Ltd.

It was unique from the start. Instead of having traditional wings like the American F-86 Sabre or the Soviet MiG-15, the Arrow used a delta-shaped wing, like the French Mirage fighter jet.

The Arrow was also to be the first plane fitted with new, lightweight engines made of titanium. The first five aircraft were tested using conventional Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojet engines and the sixth was to be outfitted with Orenda PS.13 Iroquois titanium engines made by Orenda Engines, the other A.V. Roe aviation subsidiary, also in Malton.

The first Arrow was rolled out for the press to see on Oct. 4, 1957. The plane stunned the aviation world. Flight magazine called it “the biggest, most powerful…and potentially the fastest fighter that the world has yet seen.”

“This fighter, in almost every way the most advanced of all the fighters of the 1950s, was as impressive and successful as any aircraft in history,” said British aviation expert Bill Gunston.

The first Arrow—RL-201 (RL stands for Roe Limited)—took its first test flight on March 25, 1958. It flew for 35 minutes above Toronto and landed safely. On its third test flight, on April 3, the Arrow broke the speed of sound—Mach 1—and then went supersonic. It did this while it was still climbing—at a time when aircraft typically could only break the sound barrier in a dive.

Test pilot Janusz Żurakowski flew RL-202 at Mach 1.89 (2,330 kilometres per hour) on Sept. 14, 1958. That November, pilot Wladyslaw (Spud) Potocki flew RL-202 at Mach 1.95 (2,408 kilometres per hour) in a slight dive. And this was without the Iroquois engines, which were 2,270 kilograms lighter than the J75s.

The Arrow, one of Canada’s finest technological achievements, was doomed.


On Aug. 26, 1957, the Soviet Union announced it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), claiming it could hit a target in “any part of the world,” including North America.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the same day the Arrow was unveiled to the world, the first Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1, circled the globe.

The Soviets would have 100 operational ICBMs as early as 1960, and perhaps 500 by 1962, predicted an American top-secret National Intelligence Estimate report. Now the threat was less from Soviet manned bombers flying over the Arctic and more from unmanned missiles fired from Russia or bombs dropped from outer space. The threat for which the Arrow interceptor was designed—a piloted bomber—had changed.

Six days after the Arrow’s first test flight, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Conservative Party was re-elected with a majority government on the platform of promising to lower taxes and reduce government spending. The Arrow, meanwhile, was getting expensive.

The estimate to make the first 37 Arrows was $350 million, or almost $9.5 million per plane, taking into account start-up costs for building the factories, making the equipment and tools, training personnel, and test flying the aircraft. This would make the Arrow the most expensive aircraft in the world.

On Feb. 20, 1959, Diefenbaker stood in the House of Commons and made the announcement to cancel the Arrow. Within the Canadian aviation industry, this day became known as “Black Friday.”

The government was cancelling production of the Arrow and the Iroquois engines immediately, Diefenbaker announced, because of the change “in the attitude of the Soviet Union in devoting itself more and more to missiles…. By 1962, [the Arrow] will be ineffective.”

Instead of funding the Arrow to counter the Soviet threat, the government had decided to purchase the American Bomarc long-range surface-to-air missile defence system. Overnight, more than 14,000 employees of Avro Aircraft and Orenda Engines were unemployed.

On the day the Arrow project was cancelled, the sixth Arrow—RL-206—was 98 per cent complete and a few months away from its first flight. It was the first Arrow outfitted with the Iroquois engines, giving the RL-206 40 to 50 per cent more thrust. Experts estimated the Arrow with the Iroquois engines would have beaten all world speed and altitude records if it had flown.

What happened next was one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Arrow: who ordered the scrapping and why? Sure, no more planes were going to be built, but there were five completed Arrows and the sixth was nearly finished.

On March 26, 1959, Air Marshal Hugh Campbell sent a memo to George Pearkes, Minister of National Defence. In it, he recommended that the government should “reduce it to scrap.”

The reason for this was that if they did not destroy them, they could be sold intact and sometime in the future the “airframe and engine could conceivably be placed on public view or even, in fact, used as a roadside stand,” which would cause “subsequent embarrassment.”

The minister agreed to the idea of scrapping the plane. Over the next few weeks, blowtorches were taken to the aircraft and they were reduced to scrap metal that was sold to a junk dealer in Hamilton at 6.5 cents a pound.

Today, all that is left is the nose and cockpit—the cone section—of RL-206, the outer wing of RL-203, an Iroquois engine, a front landing gear and random other parts in museums. Many of these pieces can be seen at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa.

It was recently discovered that a senior draftsman, Ken Barnes, took a copy of some of the Arrow blueprints and hid them in his basement rather than destroy them. They remained hidden there until they were discovered by his son after his death in 2019. The partial blueprints are now on display at the Diefenbaker Canada Centre in Saskatoon.

In 1961, the U.S. Air Force admitted that the Soviet bomber threat was still real. This led the Diefenbaker government to purchase 66 aging and less-capable American McDonnell F-101 Voodoo aircraft in June 1961. Bomarc missiles were strategically deployed at bases in North Bay, Ont., and La Macaza, Que., from 1962 to 1972.

But the Bomarc missile system that Canada purchased from the United States was worthless: it would only work if it could carry a nuclear warhead, but the Canadian government refused to allow nuclear warheads on Canadian soil. This flip-flop, cancelling the Arrow only to buy American fighter planes and the worthless Bomarc system, cost the Diefenbaker government the federal election in 1963 to Lester Pearson’s Liberal government.

Unanswered questions and mysteries surrounded the Arrow for decades. Was it cancelled because it was too expensive? Was the Arrow destroyed out of fear that the Soviets would steal the technology? Was it cancelled to guarantee American protection of a large part of Canada’s population? Or was it destroyed out of fear it would end up as an embarrassment, a roadside attraction?

In 1992, Canadian researcher Palmiro Campagna wrote in Storms of Controversy: The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed that he discovered a meeting was held between Pearkes and American defence secretary Neil McElroy in August 1958. The American delegation suggested, wrote Campagna, that if the Canadian government did not scrap the Arrow and purchase the Bomarc system, then the Americans would place their own Bomarcs south of the Great Lakes.

We know now—and undoubtedly the Canadian team knew then—that the Bomarc was only effective with a nuclear warhead. Use of such a weapon over southern Ontario and Quebec would be catastrophic to Canada.

“In other words,” wrote Campagna, “with the Bomarc’s limited 250-mile range, any attempt at using those missiles would create an air battle over southern Ontario and Quebec…. The threat of such a consequence was tantamount to coercion by the United States: ‘Accept our missile bases or we will give you nuclear devastation over your most populated regions.’

“Pearkes…would have reasoned that the only way to reduce the risk and save these regions would be to have the missile bases moved northward. Accepting the bases, though, would mean the death of the Arrow.”

Despite the official reason that the evolving ICBM threat rendered the interceptor unviable, many have insisted it was the cost of the Arrow that led to its demise—that it was too rich for Canada.

Either way, as historian James Marsh has written, “a sense of pride swept through the nation” when the Arrow flew and “the cancellation [and destruction] of the Arrow was a mortal blow to part of the national dream.”

Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounding the Arrow was whether or not they all were destroyed. A photo taken by a reporter in 1959 shows four of the five Arrows being dismantled on the tarmac. RL-202 is not seen in the photo.

In 1968, Air Marshal Wilfrid Curtis was asked by a Toronto Star reporter if any Arrows still existed. Curtis replied, “I don’t want to answer that.” Then he added cryptically, “If it is in existence, it may have to wait another 10 years [to be revealed.] Politically it may cause a lot of trouble.”

There is no government document stating that all of the Arrows were destroyed. Journalist June Callwood remembers the distinctive sound of an Arrow flying over Toronto the day after the Arrow program was cancelled.

“The Arrow! I thought in amazement. Nothing else could make such a racket. Someone has flown an Arrow to safety,” she wrote in a 1997 Maclean’s article.

A private collector put an authentic Arrow ejection seat up for auction on eBay in 2011. The asking price was $250,000 and the seller lived in England. How did a Canadian aircraft pilot’s seat end up in England?

The myth of “The Missing Arrow” still endures after six decades. Perhaps soon, someone will come forward with definitive, tangible proof—one way or the other—so the mystery can finally be solved. That would, at least, bring some closure to a dramatic episode in the national dream.

More to follow

 

[shawn5o]

Too rich for Canada?​

By Palmiro Campagna

The written government record—which has now been mostly declassified—offers several clues to the motivation behind the Arrow’s cancellation.

“The future of that aircraft will depend entirely on the nature of the threat,” stated George Pearkes, Minister of National Defence, in the House of Commons on Jan. 23, 1958. “The matter is constantly under examination, and as long as the threat exists, development and production of the CF-105 will proceed.”

There was no mention of affordability at this point, even though the aircraft was a few months shy of its first flight with the bulk of development costs already incurred.

“In considering matters of defence, I naturally put the safety of the country ahead of finance,” said Finance Minister Donald Fleming on Sept. 7, 1958, according to declassified Cabinet defence records. “When it had been recommended a year ago that the CF-105 be continued, I supported the recommendation. Now, however, the military view was that the program should be cancelled…. More important, the military authorities had now decided that the aircraft was not necessary.”

The military chiefs of staff were “…still of the opinion that the changing threat and rapid advances in technology, particularly in the missile field, along with the diminishing requirements for manned interceptors in Canada create grave doubts as to whether a limited number of aircraft of such extreme high cost would provide defence returns commensurate with the expenditures,” a secret Cabinet defence document noted on Feb. 6, 1959—just 14 days prior to cancellation. This was the same sentiment they had expressed in their summary report on the project in August 1958.

The last part of the statement is critical:

“…would provide defence returns commensurate with the expenditures.” In other words, the issue was not affordability but rather the changing threat and, apparently, concurrent diminishing requirement for interceptors. Put another way, why would anyone wish to spend so much money on what many had decided was an obsolete weapon system given that its main defence purpose was apparently no longer there?

The documents also show that Hugh Campbell, Chief of the Air Staff, was not in agreement. He maintained to the end that he needed the Arrow or an aircraft with similar capabilities.

When the project started in 1953, the expectation was to purchase Arrows at a flyaway cost of $2 million each, based on acquisition of 600 of them. In 1959, when the project was terminated, the flyaway cost was $3.5 million—hardly out-of-control.

Much has been made of the fact that costs were rising, but this is attributed to the fact that the RCAF started out requesting funding to build the platform, and then added engine development, the fire-control system and weapons. The devil is in the details.

At cancellation, some $384 million had been spent on development costs. Audit records show an additional $257.8 million would be required. Of this, $24.9 million would complete the airframe design and $53 million the engine design. The balance was for production and tooling and support for 37 completed aircraft. (All the materials for the production of these were on hand waiting to be assembled into aircraft.)

The records also show that at the end of the fiscal year in March 1959, the Department of National Defence returned some $260 million to the government. Only $40 million came from the Arrow. The balance came from other projects that had not moved forward or were cancelled, from money that had been earmarked for NATO that was no longer required, and from the salaries of individuals who had left DND.

If redirected to the Arrow project, this money would have completed the 37 aircraft and would have kept 25,000 people employed. Remaining aircraft—some 83, according to the records—would have been purchased for $3.5 million each, with the next 100 at $2.6 million each, according to Avro.

Engine woes

Avro was asked initially to design around the Rolls-Royce RB.106 engine from the United Kingdom. After the design was started, the RCAF went back to Avro indicating this engine was itself still in development, was running into trouble and would not be available for the Arrow.

Instead they asked Avro to design around the Curtiss-Wright J-67 engine from the U.S. This caused Avro to essentially start over again, because different engines are different sizes, different weights, have different cooling requirements, have different thrust outputs, and are mounted to the air frame differently, to name a few issues.

Well into the new design, the RCAF then returned to Avro to say the Curtiss-Wright engine would not be available either. Around this time, Orenda Engines revealed that, using Avro money, they had developed the PS.13 Iroquois.

An Iroquois test-bed demonstration showed greater thrust than any other engine available at the time, and the RCAF elected to adopt it for the Arrow. The air frame was redesigned yet again.

In a final move, the RCAF asked that the first five aircraft be fitted with the lower-powered but proven Pratt & Whitney J75 engines, thus needing one more revision but for five aircraft only.

Weapons and fire

Avro initially designed the Arrow around the Hughes fire-control system and Falcon weapons. In 1956, the RCAF decided it wanted something called the Astra fire-control system and Raytheon Sparrow missiles. Astra was a paper proposal awarded as a contract to RCA, a company that had never designed fire-control systems.

At this point, costs of Astra were about to go out of control. This system was cancelled in September 1958 and reverted to the Hughes/Falcon system. Needless to say, this also caused a redesign.


Cheers

 

[Colin Parkinson]

A flyable replica is coming together Avro Museum - Photos

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Today's Globe and Mail has an article detailing on how strategic intelligence assessments by Canadian Intelligence agencies contributed to the cancellation of the CF-105. The paper titled "Arrows, Bears and Secrets: The Role of Intelligence in Decisions on the CF-105 Program" and was produced by Alan Barnes, a former PCO intelligence analyst.

Long-secret Canadian intelligence sealed Avro Arrow’s cancellation, new paper says​

Jim Bronskill
Ottawa
The Canadian Press

The Diefenbaker government’s 1959 decision to scrap the fabled Avro Arrow was significantly influenced by Canadian intelligence that pointed to a diminishing need for the costly aircraft in the evolving Cold War, says a new research paper based on previously secret information.

The intelligence highlighted the Soviet Union’s shift away from manned bombers to long-range ballistic missiles, suggesting interceptors like the Arrow would increasingly play a smaller role in the defence of North America.

The paper makes the case that these strategic intelligence assessments – long the “missing dimension” in the debate over the Arrow’s demise – now allow for a fuller understanding of an important episode in Canadian history.

“Arrows, Bears and Secrets: The Role of Intelligence in Decisions on the CF-105 Program,” was published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed academic journal Canadian Military History.

The paper’s author, researcher Alan Barnes, tells of how the sudden cancellation of the impressive delta-winged interceptor, once a symbol of Canada’s high-tech future in aircraft manufacturing, remains a source of nationalistic anguish decades later.

Barnes, a former federal intelligence official who is now a senior fellow of the Centre for Security, Intelligence and Defence Studies at Carleton University, used the Access to Information Act to obtain classified records that shed fresh light on the saga.

“It has taken more than 60 years to get a more complete picture of the decisions surrounding the Avro Arrow,” Barnes told The Canadian Press. “Only now can we address many of the myths about the Arrow that have grown up in those decades.”

One is the notion that Canada was misled by poor U.S. intelligence. Another is that Washington deliberately manipulated the intelligence it gave Ottawa to induce Diefenbaker to cancel the Arrow. It has also been suggested that Canadian intelligence officers intentionally discounted contrary information to support a decision that had already been made by their political masters, or the government simply ignored the intelligence provided by both the Canadian and U.S. militaries.

“All of these claims cannot be true; it is possible that none of them are,” Barnes writes.

In the years after the Second World War, Canada developed its ability to prepare strategic intelligence assessments on defence and foreign policy, the paper notes. It would no longer have to rely entirely on assessments from the United States and Britain.

The analytic capability allowed Canada to fully participate in preparing the assessments on the Soviet threat to North America that would underpin joint Canada-U.S. planning for continental defence, Barnes notes.

“The CF-100 Canuck, a jet interceptor developed and manufactured in Canada, was just entering service, but there were already concerns that it might soon be outclassed by newer Soviet bombers operating at higher altitudes and faster speeds.”

In November 1952, the Royal Canadian Air Force called for an aircraft with a speed of Mach 2 and the ability to fly at 50,000 feet. “These demanding specifications contributed to the escalating costs and frequent delays in the CF-105 program.”

The Soviets would soon display a new long-range jet bomber, the Bison, at the 1954 May Day parade in Moscow. At an airshow the following year, a fly-past of 28 Bison seemed to indicate that the bomber had entered serial production, two years earlier than predicted, the paper says. In fact, only 18 prototype aircraft participated in the airshow, flying past several times to give the impression of larger numbers.

Even so, this display, along with the appearance of a new Soviet long-range turboprop bomber, the Tu-95 (dubbed the Bear), raised fears that the Soviet Union would soon outnumber the United States in intercontinental bombers, sparking a “Bomber Gap” controversy that figured prominently in American politics, the paper says.

These developments spurred acceleration of the CF-105 program.

However, Canadian intelligence would begin to cast doubt on the degree of the Soviet threat.

A 1957 report from the federal Joint Intelligence Bureau noted that the Canadian estimate of Soviet bomber production was consistently lower than the U.S. calculation, and that the Americans were reluctant to budge even when presented with new information.

In February of that year, the Liberal government approved continuing work on the CF-105, now officially known as the Arrow, but limited the scope to just eight developmental aircraft.

“There was a growing recognition among ministers that the escalating cost of the CF-105 was becoming unsustainable, but there was no interest in cancelling the program just before an election.”

The newly elected Conservative government of John Diefenbaker kept the program alive, authorizing an order for 29 pre-production aircraft.

This decision followed the first public appearance of the Arrow in October 1957.

Barnes notes the plane was rolled out for the cameras the same day the Soviet Union launched its pioneering Sputnik satellite with the help of a powerful rocket – a demonstration of Moscow’s growing ability to produce inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of striking North America.

A January 1958 assessment, “The Threat to North America, 1958-1967,” by Canada’s Joint Intelligence Committee, a co-ordinating body, ultimately had the greatest impact on decisions related to the Arrow, the paper says.

The assessment laid out clear judgments concerning the imminent transition from crewed bombers to ballistic missiles and described the limited size and capabilities of the Soviet bomber force, Barnes notes.

It observed that the Soviet ballistic missiles which were on the verge of being developed were likely to be markedly superior to the foreseeable defences, and concluded that missiles would progressively replace aircraft as the main threat to North America.

The assessment said this meant there would be little justification for the Soviet Union to increase the number of bombers, or to introduce new ones, after 1960.

“The (Joint Intelligence Committee)’s January 1958 assessment was correct in foreseeing Moscow’s shift from bombers to missiles over the subsequent decade,” Barnes writes.

He points out that following the Sputnik launch, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev came to see missiles as a panacea for a range of defence problems and as a cheaper alternative to conventional weapons. “With the Soviet bomber force now looking irrelevant and obsolete, it was relegated to a secondary position in Soviet military thinking.”

Diefenbaker announced the cancellation of the Arrow in the House of Commons in February 1959, citing the changing strategic threat as the main reason.

“Diefenbaker’s statement made little mention of the escalating – and unsustainable – cost of the CF-105 program. He likely wanted to avoid accusations by the opposition that the government was unwilling devote the necessary resources to the defence of Canada,” Barnes reasons.

Skeptical opposition Liberals pressed for more details and argued the prime minister’s claim was contradicted by public statements from U.S. Air Force officers in testimony to congressional committees.

Much of the information on which the Canadian assessments were based came from U.S. and other allied sources, but Canadian analysts brought their own judgment to bear to evaluate this information, reaching their own conclusions about the Soviet Union’s current and likely future capabilities, Barnes found.

The Canadian forecast of the capabilities of Soviet long-range aviation in the early 1960s proved to be broadly accurate, and the lower Canadian calculation of the number of Soviet operational heavy bombers was generally closer to reality than U.S. estimates, the paper says.

“As well, the Canadian view of the significance of Moscow’s imminent shift from bombers to missiles as the main means of attacking North America was essentially correct,” Barnes writes.

“By the late 1950s, with the advent of U-2 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union, the U.S. estimates of Soviet bomber numbers were also gradually reduced and the Bomber Gap ceased to be a political issue in the United States.”

From August 1958 on, the military advice to cabinet consistently stressed the Joint Intelligence Committee’s estimate of the Soviet bomber threat as a primary factor in the recommendation to cancel the CF-105, the paper says.

It is not clear whether ministers saw the committee assessment itself, although the defence minister of the day likely received a copy. In any case, the assessment’s main conclusions were summarized in the memoranda sent to the cabinet defence committee and to the full cabinet in August and September.

In addition, the officials in External Affairs, as Global Affairs Canada was then known, and the Privy Council Office who were involved in drafting Diefenbaker’s statement to the House were aware of the committee’s paper, Barnes found.

“The arguments put forward in the statement – and some of the wording – tracked closely with the (Joint Intelligence Committee) assessment, as did the government’s references to the diminished bomber threat in the subsequent parliamentary debate,” he writes. “From this it can be concluded that the Canadian intelligence assessment of the changing Soviet bomber threat to North America was an important factor in the fateful decision to cancel the Arrow.”

Barnes believes the process of drawing conclusions was unnecessarily difficult.

Historians are hampered by the fact that Canada, unlike its close allies, has no process for the systematic declassification of historical government records after a certain period of time, said Barnes, who was director of the Middle East and Africa Division at the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat of the Privy Council Office from 1995 to 2011.

“Researchers therefore have to work through the cumbersome and slow access-to-information process, which was never intended to deal with quantities of historical records,” he said.

“This means that Canadians do not have adequate access to their history and therefore have a poorer understanding of government decisions and actions in many areas, not just intelligence matters.”

Link to G & M article

Link Arrow article . This article can also be in the latest issue of Canadian Military History.

The last part that I highlighted in yellow is very relevant; I can probably find more declassified information pertaining to the Canadian military at the UK's National Archives at Kew, England then I can at any Canadian government sites. The CIA FOIA site also contains a lot information pertaining to Canada.

 

[GK .Dundas]

The Arrowheads (And various and sundry political types ..) having been milking the supposed greatness of our supposed world beating CF 105 for well over 60 years.
It was an over priced dog whose role all but disappeared a few short years later.
What it was was a marvelous test bed for emerging technologies. In particular fuselage design and manufacturing.

 

[FSTO]

The last part that I highlighted in yellow is very relevan

Since we are ruled by a small cadre of Laurentian Plutocrats they don't want the secrets of their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers brought to the light of day.

 

[FormerHorseGuard]

Everyone thought this aircraft the end all be all. It was a great aircraft for its time and limited testing done before it was chopped up.

Anyone who thinks this aircraft would still be flying and still keeping up with the aircraft of today or yesterday has to seriously think about going back to bed and not getting up.

At the time it was a break out model. did things and was able to do things no one else in the air was able to do, but what was going to be the final price tag? The US government, the US aircraft manufacturers would never let that aircraft be sold to other nations in numbers enough to make the aircraft company a profit. The US government would allow US Companies to under cut any other manufacturer selling fighter jets, and pick up the losses so that US aircraft were flying every where possible to wave the red, white, and blue flag of power at any country flying Soviet equipment.

Fast forward to 1987 and Israel was looking to build an in country fighter plane the Lavi, but cancelled it at the last moment because the US could supply the F16C for $1 million less per aircraft with the same avionic package, based on 300 plane run of the Lavi , 150 plane run the aircraft was going to increase 55% per unit. with little to no interest from other Nations to purchase it, all the R&D was going to be on the shoulders of Israel.

US government at the time was interested because most the manufacturing was going to be in the US, but even the US Air Force was interested, in the end the US Air Force purchased the F16 CJ model.
When you have only 1 customer the cost per unit is going to be much higher than anything else on the market.

The US would misrepresent any information or fact to stop international sales if it allowed a US company to swoop in and make a sale. This is business and politics mixing it at the golf course.

Killing the Lavi: A Tale of Unintended Consequences

Thirty-one years ago, on Aug. 30, 1987, an Israeli cabinet voted to terminate Israel’s Lavi fighter program, ending the largest single weapons development effort in the history of the Jewish state. It was a narrow, party-line vote in a divided “national unity” Cabinet. As the story behind this...

www.tabletmag.com

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The Arrowheads (And various and sundry political types ..) having been milking the supposed greatness of our supposed world beating CF 105 for well over 60 years.
It was an over priced dog whose role all but disappeared a few short years later.
What it was was a marvelous test bed for emerging technologies. In particular fuselage design and manufacturing.

I will disagree with you, the role did not disappear, it was supposedly to be taken over by Bomac (which was a real dog) and then we had to buy an interceptor and guess what the Americans were happy to sell us one. The Arrow was likley going to be a very good interceptor and likley would have followed a similar life as the Voodoo did, being eventually replaced by the CF-18. The effect it would have had on the Canadian aerospace industry would be interesting.

 

[FormerHorseGuard]

I will disagree with you, the role did not disappear, it was supposedly to be taken over by Bomac (which was a real dog) and then we had to buy an interceptor and guess what the Americans were happy to sell us one. The Arrow was likley going to be a very good interceptor and likley would have followed a similar life as the Voodoo did, being eventually replaced by the CF-18. The effect it would have had on the Canadian aerospace industry would be interesting.

Do not worry Bombardier would of ended up rebuilding the Arrow and ruining everything about it in no time. Canadian companies build and design great products but no internal market, and the international market unless it is manufactured in the US , for the most part it is gone.

Canadian Aircraft that made the international market and were successful, The Beaver ( 37 countries military used it) , The Otter, (22 militaries used it) Tutor Jet( aka the Snowbirds, 1 country plus Canada used it) CF 100 Canuck, 1 air force plus Canada, Dash 7, and 8 , plus various other aircraft, but a Canadian designed and mass production military aircraft, is very hard to find.

Hard to find Canadian designed equipment used in the world by any Military. Small arms, and ?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Also Canadianair Sabres and Malaysia used a armed version of the Tutor, not sure if the Canadian or the American?