Quotulatiousness

September 21, 2023

A new paper on the cancellation of the Avro Arrow in 1959

The National Post republished a Canadian Press article about a new research paper by Alan Barnes in the Canadian Military History journal:

In the years after the Second World War, Canada developed its ability to prepare strategic intelligence assessments on defence and foreign policy, the paper notes. It would no longer have to rely entirely on assessments from the United States and Britain.

The analytic capability allowed Canada to fully participate in preparing the assessments on the Soviet threat to North America that would underpin joint Canada-U.S. planning for continental defence, Barnes notes.

“The CF-100 Canuck, a jet interceptor developed and manufactured in Canada, was just entering service, but there were already concerns that it might soon be outclassed by newer Soviet bombers operating at higher altitudes and faster speeds.”

In November 1952, the Royal Canadian Air Force called for an aircraft with a speed of Mach 2 and the ability to fly at 50,000 feet. “These demanding specifications contributed to the escalating costs and frequent delays in the CF-105 program.”

The Soviets would soon display a new long-range jet bomber, the Bison, at the 1954 May Day parade in Moscow. At an airshow the following year, a fly-past of 28 Bison seemed to indicate that the bomber had entered serial production, two years earlier than predicted, the paper says. In fact, only 18 prototype aircraft participated in the airshow, flying past several times to give the impression of larger numbers.

Even so, this display, along with the appearance of a new Soviet long-range turboprop bomber, the Tu-95 (dubbed the Bear), raised fears that the Soviet Union would soon outnumber the United States in intercontinental bombers, sparking a “Bomber Gap” controversy that figured prominently in American politics, the paper says.

[…]

A January 1958 assessment, “The Threat to North America, 1958-1967”, by Canada’s Joint Intelligence Committee, a co-ordinating body, ultimately had the greatest impact on decisions related to the Arrow, the paper says.

The assessment laid out clear judgments concerning the imminent transition from crewed bombers to ballistic missiles and described the limited size and capabilities of the Soviet bomber force, Barnes notes.

It observed that the Soviet ballistic missiles which were on the verge of being developed were likely to be markedly superior to the foreseeable defences, and concluded that missiles would progressively replace aircraft as the main threat to North America.

The assessment said this meant there would be little justification for the Soviet Union to increase the number of bombers, or to introduce new ones, after 1960.

“The (Joint Intelligence Committee)’s January 1958 assessment was correct in foreseeing Moscow’s shift from bombers to missiles over the subsequent decade,” Barnes writes.

He points out that following the Sputnik launch, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev came to see missiles as a panacea for a range of defence problems and as a cheaper alternative to conventional weapons. “With the Soviet bomber force now looking irrelevant and obsolete, it was relegated to a secondary position in Soviet military thinking.”

January 21, 2021

QotD: The Laurentian Elite and the “new Canada” of the 1960s

The Patriot Game captures a unique characteristic, and problem, with Canadian conservatism. Lots of Canadian conservatives really don’t like Canada all that much. Brimelow is right to suggest that the contemporary Canadian identity is very much a creation of the Liberals and the New Class, and this isn’t one that conservatives feel all that comfortable with. What this has done is create a powerful anti-Canadian impulse in portions of the conservative movement.

Because the Liberals were so successful in creating this new identity, conservatives, especially Western conservatives (understandably) felt alienated in this new Canada. Brimelow gave some intellectual heft and crafted a coherent theory around why conservatives felt this way.

The broader narrative Brimelow, and others, put forward is that Canada’s British heritage was central to our identity and sense of who we are, but that this identity was destroyed by the Liberals who then built a new one in their own image. In the 1960s, Canadian Liberalism became self-consciously post-British, and the 1960s really do represent an approximate decade in which the “old Canada” died and a “new Canada” was born. The 1960s weren’t just a time of social change, they marked the end of the British Empire, the start of the Quiet Revolution, and of course most symbolically saw the replacement of the Red Ensign with the Maple Leaf flag. The battles between Diefenbaker and Pearson (and Pierre Trudeau) work as a stand in for the divide between old British Canada and new Liberal Canada.

Ben Woodfinden, “True North Patriotism and a Distinctly Canadian Conservatism”, The Dominion, 2020-10-20.

November 26, 2019

The Avro Arrow

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 25 Nov 2019

In the 1950s, Canada had one of the world’s most advanced aerospace industries. But the cancellation of the Avro CF-105 “Arrow” changed everything. The History Guy remembers the Avro Arrow and forgotten aviation history. It deserves to be remembered.
(more…)

March 12, 2015

Clickbait … about the Avro Arrow

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I’ve called it the only truly Canadian conspiracy theory … I’ve also described it as “artisanal Canadian myth-making, hand-woven, fair-trade, and 100% organic” … it’s the revenge of the return of the son of the Avro Arrow cancellation! At Aviation Week, Bill Sweetman looks back on the technical achievements and eventual disappointment that was the Avro Arrow project:

1957- Avro CF-105 Arrow1-1The cancellation of the Avro Canada CF-105 interceptor in February 1959 was a traumatic event for Canada’s emerging aerospace industry. When Aviation Week reported on the fighter’s rollout, in October 1957, the magazine called it “a serious contender for the top military aircraft of the next several years”. High praise indeed, for a non-U.S. aircraft, given that the XB-58 supersonic bomber was in flight test and that new aircraft in the works included the A-5 Vigilante and the F-4 Phantom.

But the Arrow was extraordinary, and more so, given that the industry that produced it was less than a decade old when the prototype contract was issued in March 1955. Avro Canada had been formed by Britain’s Hawker Siddeley Group after World War 2 and had quickly produced the CF-100 interceptor, the C-102 jet airliner (the world’s second to fly), and the CF-100’s Orenda engine, which was also fitted to Canadian-built Sabre fighters.

[…]

The performance requirements meant that almost everything on the airplane had to be invented. No existing engine would do the job, so Avro spun off a new Orenda Engines subsidiary to produce the Iroquois, the most powerful supersonic engine of the 1950s. The airframe took Canada into the world of integrally machined skins, and both airframe and engine used titanium. The CF-105 was the first aircraft to use 4,000 psi hydraulics. Canada enlisted Hughes for help with the radar and missiles, but the radar was new and the missile was the active-homing Sparrow II. Management was a huge challenge, both because the aircraft was complex (the second-biggest Mach 2 airplane anywhere) and because of the program’s sheer size: at its peak, Avro Canada was the nation’s third-largest company and in the world Top 100.

February 6, 2015

The Avro Arrow

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 2 Feb 2015

The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft, with nuclear rockets and missiles, designed and built by Avro Canada as the culmination of a design study that began in 1953. The Arrow is considered to have been an advanced technical and aerodynamic achievement for the Canadian aviation industry. The CF-105 (Mark 2) held the promise of near-Mach 2 speeds at altitudes of 50,000 feet (15,000 m) and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force’s primary interceptor in the 1960s and beyond. But when it was canceled it was a ruin for Canada’s pride. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow

September 10, 2012

Guaranteed headline in Canadian papers: mention the Avro Arrow

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:29

Today it’s the National Post (actually, it’s just a Canadian Press wire piece) chumming the waters with a report on an “Avro Arrow redesign pitched as alternative to controversial F-35”:

A Canadian company is seeking to go back in time to help fly Canada’s air force into the future.

Documents obtained by the Global News program “The West Block” indicate an update to the storied CF-105 Avro Arrow was put forward as an alternative to the purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets.

And among the project’s champions is one of Canada’s top soldiers, retired Maj.Gen. Lewis MacKenzie.

The Arrow was an advanced, all-weather supersonic interceptor jet that was developed in the 1950s. Several prototypes were built and flight tests were conducted, but the project was abruptly shut down in 1959 and the aircraft never went into production.

Even people who care less than nothing about aircraft or military technology seem to have opinions about the Avro Arrow (usually allowing them to take free shots at former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker for the decision to scrap the plane). It’s far enough in the past that the facts are more than obscured by the myths of the cottage conspiracy theory industry (artisanal Canadian myth-making, hand-woven, fair-trade, and 100% organic).

The Avro Arrow is the story that never dies in Canadian papers.

August 28, 2010

QotD: The Canadian (lack of) taste for charismatic leadership

Canadians like their politicians dull. Perhaps at some point, many moons ago, this was a defense mechanism of sorts. A dull politician is unlikely to do anything rash and interventionist, thereby mucking up the daily life of the nation. This is no longer a safe strategy. Lester Pearson was politely dull, and unleashed Medicare, an ahistorical flag and Pierre Trudeau on an unsuspecting nation. Never was so much harm, done by so few, in so short a period of time, than in Mike Pearson’s five years in office. Much of what people blame Trudeau for was actually begun by Pearson. But who could hate Mike? He was such a nice guy. He wore a bow tie.

There have been only three genuinely charismatic Prime Ministers in Canadian history: Wilfred Laurier, John Diefenbaker and Pierre Trudeau. John A Macdonald might be a weak fourth, depending on how fond you are of boozy charm. What did they all have in common? What the Elder President Bush disdainfully called the “vision thing.” You may not like their visions, but they were about something and attracted a train of almost fanatical — by Canadian standards — followers.

You can’t run into an aging baby boomer in Toronto, they are ubiquitous here, without being bored to tears with their particular Trudeau story. They campaigned for him. They met him walking down some solitary Montreal street. You get the odd Trudeau in the wilderness stories. The funny ones usually involve a disco, a blond and something that happened after the third cocktail. Urban legends used to surround Laurier as well. Dief, as Peter C Newman noted, had the presence of an Old Testament prophet.

Their vision and their charisma were not coincidences, but corollaries. Just being charming and interesting will get you only so far.

Publius, “Iggy Why”, Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2010-08-26

August 27, 2009

The only Canadian conspiracy theory

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:29

American conspiracy enthusiasts have plenty to choose from, but their Canadian confreres don’t have much . . . but they do have the Avro Arrow controversy:

InnovationCanada.ca spoke with Campagna 50 years after the only examples of Canada’s premier jet fighter were cut into pieces.

InnovationCanada.ca (IC): What would most Canadians be shocked to find out about the Arrow, 50 years after its demise?

Palmiro Campagna (PC): Most people don’t know that the order to destroy the Arrow did not come from Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. One theory was that Diefenbaker decided to cancel as this was a Liberal project and he had problems with A.V. Roe president Crawford Gordon. But the reports I had declassified showed that was clearly not the case.

The decision to cut the Arrows into scrap was blamed on Diefenbaker as an act of vengeance, but it was actually an act of national security. The Arrow was an advanced piece of military technology, and the Canadian government didn’t want the test planes to go to a Crown disposal group that would be allowed to auction them off to anyone in the world.

I’ve written a little bit about the Arrow controversy back in 2004:

I hate to sound like a killjoy, but everything I’ve read about the AVRO Arrow says that, while Dief was widely viewed as an idiot for destroying the . . . finished planes, it would never have been a viable military export for Canada. The plane was great, there seems to be no question about that, but it was too expensive for the RCAF to be the only purchaser, and neither the United States nor the United Kingdom was willing (at that time) to buy from “foreign” suppliers. With no market for the jet, regardless of its superior flying and combat qualities, there was little point in embarking on full production.

Also, given the degree of penetration by Soviet spies, the Canadian government took the easiest option in destroying the prototypes. That doesn’t make it any less tragic if you’re a fan, but it does put it into some kind of perspective, I hope.

Powered by WordPress