Storms of Controversy

The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed

Palmiro Campagna

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781770705456
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Aviation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The development of the Avro Arrow was a remarkable Canadian achievement. Its mysterious cancellation in February 1959 prompted questions that have long gone unanswered. What role did the Central Intelligence Agency play in the scrapping of the project? Who in Canada's government was involved in that decision? What, if anything, did Canada get in return? Who ordered the blowtorching of all the prototypes? And did Arrow technology find its way into the American Stealth fighter/bomber program?

When Storms of Controversy was first published in 1992, its answers to these questions sent a shock wave across the country. Using never-before-released documents, the book exploded the myth that design flaws, cost overruns, or obsolescence had triggered the demise of the Arrow.

Now, in this fully revised fourth edition, complete with two new appendices, the bestselling book brings readers up-to-date on the CF-105 Arrow, the most innovative, sophisticated aircraft the world had seen by the end of the 1950s.

1
DREAMS

Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House I should like to make a somewhat lengthy statement on the subject of one facet of the national defence of Canada…. The government had carefully examined and re-examined the probable need for the Arrow aircraft and Iroquois engine known as the CF-105…. The conclusion arrived at is that the development of the Arrow aircraft and the Iroquois engine should be terminated now.

— Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker,
Black Friday, February 20, 1959¹

With the above words, more than 14,000 employees at Avro Aircraft and Orenda Engines were released in a single afternoon. In all, more than 25,000 people, including those working for various subcontractors, would be directly affected. There were rumours of suicide and the reality of a mass exodus of talented personnel from the country. Not only was a military project terminated, but the heart and soul of a nation were destroyed. Canada’s aircraft industry would never embark on such an ambitious project again. Then, incredibly, one final blow was delivered. Five magnificent aircraft — and a sixth ready for taxi trials — were hacked and chopped and blowtorched to scrap metal, along with 31 others in various stages of assembly. Engines, drawings, production line tooling, and the like were all ordered destroyed. Government records on the issue would remain classified for more than 30 years. The question is why.

Since the cancellation, several books and articles have appeared, each trying to explain some facet of the story. Kay Shaw, a former Avro employee, wrote There Never Was an Arrow, James Dow gave us The Arrow, and the Arrowheads provided the best picture and technical book, entitled, simply, Arrow. At least one stage play was produced, The Legend of the Avro Arrow, by Clinton Bomphray, and two books of fiction with the Arrow as the central theme have appeared. Not to be left out, several historians have included references to the Arrow story in various books on military history or on Canada’s aviation heritage.

What exactly was the Arrow? Amazingly, many Canadians have never heard of it, despite the books and recently renewed interest by the news media. Was it truly a world-beater as some have maintained, or was it a mass of technical junk? Officially, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and his colleagues had said that with production behind schedule, the aircraft would be ready at a time when the principal enemy threat would come from the intercontinental ballistic missile, not the manned bomber; therefore, the aircraft would be obsolete. It was also said the range of the aircraft was limited, and its cost was alluded to as high, although this was never put forward as the official reason for termination.

Were the costs of the program beyond reach? If the aircraft was so good, why were other countries, namely the United States and Great Britain, not interested? Why did the government try to obliterate all traces of the aircraft after the project was cancelled? Why were any remaining government records locked away if the project was a disaster? Why have so many denied the truth? Or have they?

The 1950s were years of cold war uncertainty and post–Second World War prosperity. In the United States, Richard M. Nixon had become President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice-president. Nixon had already made a name for himself prosecuting suspected Communists, while Senator Joseph McCarthy was stirring anti-Communist sentiments throughout the country. In charge of foreign policy was John Foster Dulles, secretary of state and hard-line anti-Communist, a sharp contrast to the more conciliatory President Eisenhower. In charge of the spy network was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), headed by Allen Dulles, brother to John.²

It was a period of espionage and intrigue. For example, revelations in the 1980s showed that, in the 1950s, the CIA was conducting covert hallucinogenic experiments on Canadians in Quebec, seemingly unbeknownst to the Canadian government. Meanwhile, both the CIA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were involved in the hunt for Soviet agents, at least one of whom was actively involved in trying to obtain information on the classified supersonic jet interceptor being built by Avro Canada. Would these people and events play a role in the termination?³

During the Second World War, Britain saw the need to have its Lancaster bomber production augmented by companies in Canada. The National Steel Car plant in Malton, Ontario, was chosen since it was already building aircraft parts for the war effort. In November 1942, this company became a Crown corporation and was renamed Victory Aircraft Limited.

News of superior Lancasters being built by Victory reached Britain. In 1943, Sir Roy Dobson, managing director of A.V. Roe, Manchester, decided to pay a visit, along with Sir Frank Spriggs, managing director of Hawker Siddeley. They were met by a young Canadian, Fred T. Smye, director of aircraft production at Victory, and his superior, Ralph P. Bell, director general, and were escorted on a tour of the existing aircraft companies in Ontario. Scott Young, in his 10-year history of the Canadian A.V. Roe company, recorded the following: “A few days later as the tour of Canadian plants progressed, Fred Smye heard the first hint in conversation that Sir Roy thought Canadians should have their own self-sufficient aircraft industry. From that moment on, Fred Smye never let go of the idea that it could be done.”⁴

Two years later, Sir Roy reached an agreement with the Honourable Clarence Decatur Howe, an American engineer who had become minister of munitions and supply under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. It was decided that Victory Aircraft would be taken over by Hawker Siddeley on a rental purchase plan, providing the management at Hawker Siddeley agreed. Fred Smye, who had moved on to become assistant general manager of Federal Aircraft, resigned in order to become the first employee of the new company. Unfortunately, before Hawker Siddeley could sign the agreement, the war in Europe ended and all contracts for more aircraft were cancelled. Weeks passed, and Fred Smye finally travelled to England to learn of any developments. On his return, Sir Roy followed. After a series of meetings with Minister C.D. Howe and Victory officials, A.V. Roe Canada was formed. The date was December 1, 1945. Fred Smye was appointed assistant general manager and would become the administrative force behind many of A.V. Roe’s projects.⁵

In 1946, Turbo-Research Limited, a Crown company engaged in research work in the jet engine field, was acquired by A.V. Roe Canada. On December 2, 1954, it was decided to split A.V. Roe into separate airframe and engine companies. Fred Smye became vice-president and general manager of the aircraft division, renamed Avro Aircraft, and Walter McLachlan was appointed head of Orenda Engines. However, A.V. Roe Canada remained as the overall parent company. Another major company, Canadian Steel Improvements, was soon added to the group, and in September 1955, Canadian Car and Foundry was purchased. In the midst of these acquisitions, the company designed and produced the Orenda, a first-class jet engine; the C-102 Jetliner, which introduced North America to jet transport; and the CF-100, a world-class fighter. Frank Spriggs of Hawker Siddeley would eventually say to the A.V. Roe company, “You have demonstrated beyond question that you can talk with any aircraft or engine design teams in the world,” words that would be echoed by Fred Smye himself over A.V. Roe’s most ambitious project, the CF-105 Avro Arrow.⁶

Edgar Atkin was transferred from A.V. Roe in the United Kingdom to become Avro Canada’s chief engineer. He and Canadian engineer Jim Chamberlin, Avro’s chief aerodynamicist, began thinking about a replacement for the highly successful CF-100 subsonic fighter. In January 1952, with the departure of Atkin, James C. Floyd, also from the A.V. Roe Company in the United Kingdom, was appointed chief engineer. It was now his task to work with Chamberlin on the concept for the new aircraft, the Arrow. Floyd would eventually describe Chamberlin as “without a doubt the best technical man I have ever had the privilege to be associated with.”⁷

Floyd had originally come to Canada in February 1946 to work on the C-102 Jetliner. This was a medium-range intercity jet transport, the first of its kind in North America. The story of the Jetliner is well documented in Jim Floyd’s own book on the subject, but a few points are worthy of note here.

The Avro CF-100 over the white cliffs of Dover, England. (Jim Floyd)

Commercial jet transport had not yet made its mark on the world scene and was considered a new technology. Then, on July 27, 1949, the British-designed DH Comet rose a few feet off a runway in England to become the first commercial jet to fly. Only two weeks later, on August 10, 1949, Canada’s Jetliner flew for the first time. Unlike the Comet, the Jetliner flew for more than an hour on its maiden flight, and up to altitudes of 13,000 feet. Floyd would later be awarded the Wright Brothers Medal for this effort, the first time this medal was awarded to an individual from outside the United States.

The Jetliner design was based on simplicity, safety, high speed, comfort, and economy and was able to operate from conventional airports with no special facilities. On April 18, 1950, the Jetliner delivered the first airmail in the world on a run from Toronto to New York in half the time it normally took. In The Avro Story, Jim Floyd wrote:

On arrival in New York we were whisked downtown, flanked by a siren-blasting escort of New York City police, straight through the city to meet the mayor.

The next day the New York press had pictures of the Jetliner flying over the city, with the following caption: “This should give our nation a good healthful kick in its placidity. The fact that our massive but underpopulated good neighbour to the north has a mechanical product that licks anything of ours is just what the doctor ordered for our overdeveloped ego. The Canadian plane’s feat accelerates a process already begun in this nation — a realization that Uncle Sam has no monopoly on genius.”⁸

The Jetliner broke records with every flight and garnered the interest and admiration of the U.S. military, several airline companies, and Howard Hughes, who owned Trans World Airlines (TWA). Hughes used the Jetliner as his personal plane for several months while he evaluated its characteristics and flight-handling qualities. In Howard Hughes and TWA, Robert Rummel, TWA’s chief engineer, states:

The Jetliner, the first jet transport produced in North America, was an advanced, medium-range, 450-mph plane that first flew an amazing eight years before Boeing’s 707. This extraordinary achievement is all the more remarkable considering that it was the first product of a new company in a country not dominant in the development or construction of aircraft. The design, developed by A.V. Roe Canada (AVRO), was conspicuously ahead of any competitive transport. The programme represented a giant bite for any company to chew in 1946, when the project was undertaken, no matter how extensive its resources or how well qualified the individual participants.⁹

The president of National Airlines, George T. Baker, was also interested in the Jetliner. According to Rummel, Baker was ready to purchase four aircraft at $1 million each with options for six more. The United States Air Force was prepared to order 20 for military training, and preparations were underway to have an American engine sent to Avro for testing. Howard Hughes also entered into serious negotiations for the manufacture of the Jetliner. However, because of the war in Korea, Minister of Munitions and Supply C.D. Howe had ordered all work to cease in favour of accelerated production of the CF-100 fighter. The Jetliner would not be put into production. Ironically, the CF-100 would go into squadron service in 1953 as the Korean conflict was nearing its end. Was the Korean War the true reason behind the Jetliner termination, especially with orders pending for its purchase and manufacture? In 1956, the revolutionary Jetliner would be ordered reduced to scrap. It would later be reported that no one wanted to buy the Jetliner and that it was of poor design. It is unfortunate that this misinformation surfaced in Canada only. It is even more unfortunate that such a diatribe has been believed. The facts prove otherwise.¹⁰

The Avro Jetliner, the first commercial jet to fly in North America. Terminated and then destroyed in 1956. (Jim Floyd)

In January 1952, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) realized that the CF-100 would eventually have to be replaced. After 1951, an All-Weather Interceptor Requirements Team was assembled to study Canada’s air defence needs and to recommend performance specifications for a new all-weather interceptor aircraft to counter the perceived enemy bomber threat. The team consisted of representatives from the RCAF, the Defence Research Board (DRB), the National Research Council (NRC), and the National Aeronautical Establishment (NAE). (The NAE had been established in December 1950 by the Canadian government as an aeronautical research and development centre administered originally by the NRC.¹¹ )

The final report from this team was published on March 20, 1952, with a summary forwarded to A.V. Roe. Avro responded in June with two brochures entitled “C-104 Supersonic All-Weather Fighters.” They described a single-engine and a twin-engine aircraft, neither of which fully satisfied the required combat performance. Still, on August 25, 1952, the RCAF requested that the NAE analyze these proposals. The NAE reply stated that the twin-engine design came closest to meeting the specifications, and that although weight was excessive, aircraft performance estimates were realistic. It was recommended that further studies be undertaken.¹²

In March 1953, the RCAF issued Operational Requirement ORI/1-63, “Supersonic All-Weather Interceptor Aircraft,” followed by RCAF Specification Air-7-3, “Design Studies of Prototype Supersonic All-Weather Interceptor Aircraft.” Both were given to Avro with a requirement for design studies for the most efficient aircraft (in terms of size, weight, and cost) that could be developed for the engines that would be ava...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Major-General (Retired) Richard Rohmer
• Preface to the Fourth Paperback Edition
• Preface to the Third Paperback Edition
• Preface to the Second Paperback Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• 1 Dreams
• 2 U.S. and U.K. Interest
• 3 The Arrow
• 4 Up, Up, or Away?
• 5 Mutilation
• 6 Why?
• 7 Myths and Misconceptions
• Epilogue
• Postscript
• Appendix I: A Selection from the Secret Files
• Appendix II: The Forgotten Tapes and Costs Revealed
• Appendix III: A Report on Arrow Flight-Test Models
• Appendix IV: Continuing Arguments About the Arrow’s Destruction
• Notes
• Index