Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of John Diefenbakers misguided decision to cancel the Avro Arrow, the most advanced long range interceptor of its time.
The Arrow was far ahead of any Nato or Warsaw pact interceptor with a top speed estimated to be Mach 2.0 and a top ceiling of 50,000 feet the Arrow featured many innovations that we see in modern day fighters. With a recessed weapons bay to lower intercept returns and a delta wing designed which guaranteed high stability at high speed, the Arrow was a source of envy by the U.S. Air Force a source of fear by Soviet Bomber pilots, and a source of pride by the Canadian Aviation industry and Royal Canadian Airforce.
It's cancellation marked the beginning of the massive decline of the Canadian Military caused by open hostility towards it by the Canadian Government.
Diefenbacker stupidly believed that the future of Canadian aero defense would be based around long range nuclear anti aircraft Bomarc missile system. Unfortunately the Bomarc concept was as big of a failure as Diefenbakers commitment to the defense of this country during the height of the cold war.
Sadly the death of the Arrow lead to a massive brain drain as the best and brightest of the Avro team ended up working for the U.S. military aircraft industry or the U.S. Airforce or Nasa.
This still pisses me off and it happened decades before I was even born. This move basically made us completely dependant on the United States to help protect us, instead of Canada being able to patrol it's own borders. I still don't think our political policies would've allowed for a massive military or anything, but I think we would've been one of the most advanced, we'd beat sheer numbers with better quality of equipment.
Instead...here we are today. Hell, if Greenland gets pissed off and invades what are we going to do? Fly some of our decaying helicopters out and hope the rain of debris is enough to deter them?
I think the worst thing is the loss of the personnel, I honestly think it started a trend where Canada's best and brightest just went to the States instead because they realized they'd at least be appreciated.
I mean, you'd think he would've reinstated the program when other countries phoned to ask if they could buy stuff, instead he just scraps everything, way to go genius.
This is a real shame and kind of a blight on Canadian sovereignty. Wasn't there a kind of a behind the scenes reason...something that they had to go along with the US on and couldn't fund both?
Personally, I think the Arrow is way overblown in terms of the airplane it was. Yes, it was state of the art in its time in some respects, particularly its flight controls, but the age of the pure interceptor was just about over anyways. The coming years, particularly the air war in Vietnam, would amply demonstrate that maneuverability was still far more important than straight line speed and reliance on guided weapons.
So by 1962 or so, when the Arrow would have been about production ready, pure interceptor aircraft like the F-106, the F-104, the BAE Lightning, MiG-25, etc, were already the last of their breed, and had similar performance in most respects.
Happy Birthday Arrow
