Shutting Down the National Dream: A. V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow

A love story of a nation, a plane, and a dream . . . In fourteen short, precocious years, from 1946 to 1959, A. V. Roe Canada and its two subsidiaries, Avro Aircraft and Orenda Engines, almost single-handedly set the aviation world on its ear. Their designers and engineers were described by NATO's General Norstad as "just about the best team anywhere." By 1958 Avro had designed, and was about to produce, the most sophisticated piece of aviation design and technology the world had ever seen: the Arrow, decades in advance of world competition. Truly, they had redefined the national dream. On February 20, 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, more at home with the cost of prairie grain than the cost of hi-tech aircraft, cancelled the Arrow and, to ensure the annihilation, ordered the immediate scrapping of the six existing planes. (Mysteriously, one of the &ircraft may have escaped the cutters' torches, giving rise to the notion of a "Phantom Arrow.") Many argue that, upon the Arrow's demise, Canada lost its position as a worldclass hi-tech power. The aeronautical brain drain to the U.S. began; many of Canada's best aviation people became involved in U.S. space programs and- were instrumental in putting Americans on the moon. On the thirtieth anniversary of the Arrow's first flight, legendary test pilot Jan Zurakowski reflected sadly on the Arrow's cancellation: - "It's almost as if our spirit as a nation died." Greig Stewart has told the story behind the story of A. V. Roe and the fabled Arrow. A story of the right stuff at the wrong time. A tragedy of government errors. A love story of a nation, a plane, and a dream. Shutting Down The National Dream: A. V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow......Page 1 Winner of the National Business Book Award......Page 3 Copyright......Page 6 CONTENTS......Page 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 11 FOREWORD......Page 13 PROLOGUE......Page 17 1. The Business of War......Page 22 2. Battleships of the Air......Page 30 3. Takeover......Page 47 4. A Gather of Aeronautical Men......Page 62 5. Getting off the Ground......Page 72 6. Jets in Their Eyes......Page 90 7. Storm Clouds Gathering......Page 104 8. Stealing the Thunder......Page 118 9. The Quick and the Dead......Page 137 10. Rebirth: The Coming of Crawford Gordon......Page 154 11. High Flight......Page 174 12. Gods of the Air......Page 207 13. Coming of Age......Page 223 14. Vision of the North......Page 240 15. The Icarus Factor......Page 264 16. Overtaken by Events......Page 284 17. Scattered to the Wind......Page 300 Epilogue......Page 313 Appendix......Page 315 Notes......Page 325 Bibliography......Page 339 Index......Page 343 GREIG STEWART......Page 353 Greig Stewart. Includes Index. Includes Bibliographical References: P. 307-310.