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.
https://twitter.com/InklessPW/statuses/245128243458478080
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