“On Feb. 20, 1959, on the day that became known as Black Friday in Canada, the Avro Arrow project was cancelled.”
Just about every Canadian knows the story of the Avro Arrow. The space-aged, twin-engine jet fighter, also known as the CF-105, was designed to fly higher and faster than anything the Soviets could throw at it. The best and brightest minds in the country’s vibrant aerospace industry were assembled to work on the project from its beginnings in 1953 right though to its first flight six years later. Avro Canada hoped the Arrow would be a hit on the export market for a generation, with American, British and other friendly powers lining up with orders for the futuristic warplane. That’s why the country was stunned in 1959 when Ottawa abruptly announced the program’s cancellation. Even now, the decision to scrap the Arrow remains steeped in mystery and controversy. Legions of Canadian journalists and historians have since sought an explanation for the fiasco. One of them is Palmiro Campagna. The Ottawa-based author has written three books about the CF-105. His latest title, The Avro Arrow: For the Record, comes out on Feb. 16 just days before – the 60th anniversary of the government’s baffling decision to end the program. To mark the milestone Campagna has written the following article for MHN about the CF-105 and its mysterious cancellation, which is still largely unknown outside of Canada.
By Palmiro Campagna
IN A 1957 cover article, Aviation Week Magazine indicated that the Avro Arrow, “…had given Canada a serious contender for the top military aircraft of the next several years.”
The magazine Flight would call the Arrow “the biggest, most powerful, most expensive and potentially the fastest fighter that the world has yet seen.”
In his 1976 book, Early Supersonic Fighters of the West, aviation guru Bill Gunston stated, “[the Arrow] was by a wide margin the most advanced fighter in the world/”
But, on Feb. 20, 1959, on the day that became known as Black Friday in Canada, the Arrow project was cancelled. The story behind the move has been a mystery ever since.
Here are 10 facts about this remarkable yet ill-fated fighter jet.
It would have been one of the world’s best fighters
The CF-105 was designed as a twin-engine, long-range, high-wing delta, all-weather supersonic interceptor. Its key mission in war time was to prevent attack from incoming enemy aircraft from across the North Pole and south into Canadian skies and into the United States. Likewise, it was designed to prevent the intrusion of North American airspace by high flying enemy reconnaissance aircraft similar to the U-2. In peacetime, it would expose any violations of Canadian airspace, while bringing human judgement to bear, a role that could not be fulfilled by missiles, which once launched were unable to be recalled. The aircraft was built to fly at Mach 2 and reach altitudes of 60,000 feet. In flight tests, using underpowered engines, it climbed to 58,000 feet and topped out at Mach 1.9 in level flight and Mach 1.95 in a slight dive. With its proper Iroquois engines, it was said it would break all speed records.
It pioneered modern fly-by-wire technology
One of the key features which set the Arrow apart from other aircraft of the day was that it was the first production aircraft to be designed and flown with a flight control system known as fly-by-wire. Incorporated into the design was transistorized technology. A little-known fact is that instrumental in the design of the fly-by-wire controls of the Mercury spacecraft, were Jim Chamberlin and Richard R. Carley, drawing on their experience as ex-Avro Arrow engineers, who went to work for NASA immediately after the cancelation of the Arrow.
It featured internal weapons storage
On the weapons front, the Arrow’s complement of AIM-4 Falcon missiles, were to be carried internally so as to reduce drag in flight. Each would be lowered for attack on its own launch rail. The system was in the throes of being completed when the project was abruptly terminated. The weapons bay itself was designed to be lowered and removed on the ground and substituted with another, for quick turnaround in the event of an attack. The weapons bay could also be reconfigured for other purposes such as for reconnaissance work if required.
The Arrow would become Avro Canada’s most famous plane
From its inception in 1953, the first Arrow took to the air on March 25, 1958. While this was after a mere five years, more importantly, the Canadian arm of Avro had only come into existence in 1946 and had not yet developed a supersonic aircraft. The first five models, designated Mark I, were fitted with Pratt and Whitney J75 engines. While these were underpowered for the aircraft, the plan was to use them to test out the design, develop pilot familiarization and evaluate its systems. The Mark II aircraft, starting with aircraft 206, were to be fitted with the more powerful Iroquois engine being developed by A.V. Roe subsidiary, Orenda. With the J75, the Arrow achieved supersonic flight speed on its third test flight. On its seventh flight, it achieved a speed over 1,000 miles per hour at 50,000 feet while climbing and accelerating.
The Soviets took a keen interest in the Arrow
In October 1958, a team of Soviet scientists and aircraft designers visited the Avro plant near Toronto. Their general comment was that the CF-105 was an excellent aircraft and were puzzled to learn that its development might not go forward. Ironically, when the project was cancelled, one of the reasons given for its suspension was that information about the plane’s design might leak to the communists. Authorities believed that there had even been at least one Soviet mole operating within Avro.
Its cancellation would become known as “Black Friday”
With five preproduction aircraft successfully flying, 32 others in various stages of assembly and Mark II Arrow 206, being readied for taxi trials with the Iroquois engine, the project was abruptly terminated. That same afternoon, A.V. Roe Canada Limited was told to cease and desist on all work related to the Arrow and its Iroquois engine, including all subcontracts. Some 14,000 employees who had been working at Avro and Orenda were ordered to drop tools and leave the premises. In all, government records estimate some 25,000 people were affected by the decision, when one factored in the various subcontractors. Newspapers of the day put the totals much higher.
Avro’s brightest headed south
In what was described as the ‘brain drain’, several top engineering minds moved to companies or agencies offshore. Most notably, 25 top engineers were immediately recruited by NASA in the United States and placed in key positions in aiding the development of the Mercury space capsules and subsequent follow-ons including Gemini, Apollo and the Space shuttle.
All details of the Arrow were inexplicably shredded
Perhaps the most egregious of acts following the immediate termination of the project is that all flying aircraft, including engines, jigs, tooling, technical information and blueprints, were ordered destroyed. For over 30 years, no one owned up to the decision. Blame was hurled at the prime minister of the day, John George Diefenbaker and even at the president of the company, Crawford Gordon. But, neither had an active role in the decision. The Prime Minister had an indirect role in that as leader of the country he took the final decision to cancel the project, but forever maintained he did not have a hand in ordering the destruction of anything. Yet the cancellation dogged Diefenbaker until his death in 1979.
Canada replaced the Arrow with a lacklustre American missile system
The cancellation of the Arrow was intimately connected with Canada’s adoption of the CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missile system. By 1959, Ottawa was convinced that the Soviet bomber threat had diminished and that interceptors like the CF-105 were unnecessary; the Bomarc alone would be enough to protect the nation’s airspace. Yet, shortly after the Arrow’s termination, the need for interceptors was back on the agenda. Unfortunately, without its own advanced jet, Canada was forced to shop for a replacement from foreign sources, namely the United States. Many Canadians would attribute the Arrow’s untimely demise to backroom pressure from the U.S. and its aerospace industry. In fact, it’s a theory that persists to this day. Ironically, just as Bomarc base construction got underway in Canada, the Pentagon began decommissioning America’s own Bomarcs. The missile system it seems was not a very good weapon after all for a number of reasons, not the least of which, it was most ineffective without its nuclear warhead.
The Arrow legend lives on in Canada
Of the significant pieces that remain, there is the cockpit section of Arrow 206, some wing sections and an Iroquois engine, all housed at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, Canada. Other parts, pieces, test reports and blueprints have also turned up over the years, including additional Iroquois engines which escaped the destruction. As for A.V. Roe, the company had grown to be the third largest in Canada, from its inception in 1946, to Black Friday in 1959. By 1962, it ceased to exist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Palmiro Campagna the author of The Avro Arrow: For the Record. Working from archival records declassified in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, the book explores the machinations behind the rise and demise of the project. Campagna is a retired professional engineer from the Department of National Defence. Since the early 1980s, as a researcher, writer, he has been responsible for the declassification of a significant number of documents on the Avro Arrow. His other books are, Storms of Controversy: The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed, The UFO Files: The Canadian Connection Exposed (with details on the Avrocar) and Requiem for A Giant; A.V. Roe Canada and the Avro Arrow.
The Arrow Program resulted in the only B-47 bomber to see service with a foreign air force. In 1956 a B-47 bomber (called CL-52 in the RCAF) with loaned to help test the Orenda Iroquois engine. Because of its size, it was mounted on the right side near the tail. It thrust was 25 000 lbf (110 kN) with after burner.
When at full thrust, the bomber had to idle five of the six engines (the port outboard engine was just above idle to counter the offset thrust of the Iroquois) and go into a climb to avoid exceeding its maximum air speed.
The USAF pilot reportedly said “You want to put two of these on a fighter!”
In 1957, the aircraft was returned to the USAF and scrapped. It was found that the airframe was bent from the testing even though it only accumulated 31 flight hours.
I first learned of this black chapter in Canada’s history when as a young fresh immigrant back in 1982 from Scotland I picked up a book in a used book store in Hamilton Ontario with two very interesting looking images of the arrow on the front cover.
The books heading is “the fall of an arrow” written by Murray Peden.
Murray was ex RCAF who flew for bomber command in the second world war.
He ended up as a securities lawyer for the Manitoba securities commission.
This book gets in to the geo political technical and financial aspects of the arrows demise in fine detail.
I came across this same book in my basement recently and decided to re read it.
After reading it I decided to use a tool not available to me in 1982 “the internet” to expand my knowledge of the event.
I have come to conclusion that Canada took on more than she could handle at that particular time in its short history.
If we had only developed the airframe it could have worked. Perhaps if we had only developed a single airframe and two Iroquois engines to test and use as leverage to sell to the USA UK. France etc. we might have pulled it off but at the end of the day not only did the Conservatives pull the plug it is almost certain a new Liberal government headed by Lester Pearson would have followed suit.
Ironically only a few years after the arrow cancelation a single province “Quebec” splashed out over 1.6 Billion Canadian dollars to host a sporting event. The Olympic games.
Cheers !
JIm.
What about those Arrow models that were flow over Lake Ontario on filmed one-way missions? I understand that at one has been located beneath the lake’s cold waters. I can imagine what one is worth today!
The model found is nit one of the 9 test launched into Lake Ontario. It was part of the Velvet Glove missile program but, it might have been used as a test tracking vehicle to test the tracking devices prior to the Arrow model launches. There is some evidence of this use in one of the Arrow model test reports.
Read all the books about Avro Canada and the Arrow especially Cold War Tech War by Randall Whitcomb to learn about how American politics and selfishness destroyed Avro Canada and tens of thousands of jobs.
American selfishness? That we wouldn’t buy your vaporware trash? You know, the maneuverability of a brick designed to go after bombers when ICBMs were becoming the norm? The one that has to be tested with Pratt-Whitney engines because you couldn’t get your act together in time?
Large expensive weapons programs need broad political support. Otherwise the opposition will just cancel it when they come to power, as Diefenbaker did AND like Labour cancelled , well, almost everything in 1964 when they took power in the UK.
Sweden seems to have built a few fighter jets the last 60 years or so- it can be done.
The irony of this “The USA took our toy away!” narrative is that Diefenbaker had rather shaky relations with the US, he disliked the Kennedy’s and wanted trade to turn from the US to the UK. Hardly a guy that would sell out Canada to the Yanks.
Incredible, and typically Canadian to write such a dismal blurb on Soviet infiltration of the project and the asinine decision to allow the Soviets to visit the plant. You can take all your theories behind cancellation and chalk it all up to the fact that half of Canada’s Liberal Government were working directly for the USSR and the US and Britain probably decide FOR Canada to pull the plug as they did not want to suffer from Canada’s Communist complicity. Canadians need to wake up and understand that as of 1945 we were a satellite of the USSR.
niet wow your quite the Know it all as a matter of fact.. So let me guess your a right wing conservative that thinks the contry and the world should be run in an ultra right wing you better conform to our norms way good for you , but our liberal party is and wasn’t in league with the USSR listen to yourself so many conspiracies going on up there eh
Couldn’t wait for cocktail hour, could you?
It’s obviouse that you are one of the same hard head as the Dieffenbacher government was. Yes we had Soviets here but we were NOT A satelite as you stated, get your facts together befor you sound off. It’s like the old saying “It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubts.
Seriously , McCarthyism still lives even in Canada , A chicken in every pot and a communist under every bed … great satire !!!
Sales were a major problem. Britain was developing the Lighting (a great aircraft) and US was creating a number of airframes F104, F100and F4 and didn’t want a competitor so probably a lot of economic pressure being exerted.
The US had the XF-108
yea the one that looks suspiciously like the avro arrow
Form follows function. Note that the XF-108 was also cancelled in 1959.
My dad who was one of the designers of the Avro Vulcan in Britain. He came to Canada in early1959 to work in the new burgeoning Canadian military aircraft industry. That worked out well. We relocated to Vancouver and recruiters tracked him down him almost immediately. When they laid out the security conditions he would have to live under in the US, he declined. He went back to university and became a social worker. Good for me, or I would have been prime age for Vietnam a decade later. Still glad to be Canadian.
The Avro Arrow affair is another proof the elected officials answer to someone else than the people electing them. What a shame!
great info i was able to use for my school project! thanks! i made sure to give u guys credit!!
the iroquois engine at the Ottawa air museum at Rockliffe airport was found under a tarp in the old museum by two kids aged 5 years old … this engine was previously used by NRC canada as a back up generator for them in Ottawa and once retired was returned to the airbase at rockliffe … where it stayed covered by a tarp on the back wall of the secondary hanger used for the museum t that time in 1969
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How do I know this I was one of those 2 kids who found the engine and asked a staff member what plane it was from it took them 20 minutes to figure out it was one of the few remaining Iroquois engines and was out of rl206.
That’s an amazing story. Has it ever been covered by the news?
no it hasnt … this was back when rockliffe airport had 3 or four hangars storing planes parts and the museum … my friend and I were huge plane nuts … he could tell you what jet liner was flying over head because he knew the schedules and what plane and what company was flying it … we did a LOT of plane watching back then.
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once they built the new museum … what you see today . they placed it pride of place beside the nose section of 206 that spent time at NRC on the rideau and Ottawa river … it was used with high altitude test work .. as it’s cockpit could be pressurized or depressurized .. essentially becomming a hyperbaric chamber
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currently I am working in fusion 360 to remake a set of plans to build a fully functional model of it … well no weapons … and yes even the engine IF i can find a size that works … and I have plans to take that design from a gen 2 fighter to a gen 5, 6 and 7 even 8th generation …. but skills need training and time is against me as im close to retirement age already …
These two presentations explain in more detail, what happened. They are based on the archival record. The first one contains material not seen before, with respect to the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCTf-KJ2Eo
Mr. Campagna … do you happen to recall the angle the arrow was at rest due to the landing gear offset height … it seems I have not been able to locate a reliable source for this required measurement and a level sitting model would not appear as anything BUT a bad show of workmanship … the inner and out wing airfoil design I have same with wing droop and placements … BUT the landing gear also adjusts the engines placement and imparts a slight angle on the thrust in flight which by all my research allows the center of weight to drop below the center of gravity making the plane self stabilize in level flight
it is the angle of the jangle, obviously officially classifed and destroyed and not so obviously alive and well at cf-104arrow