“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. Canadians 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.

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