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Pieces of the original Arrow, along with models and replicas, can be found in various Canadian museums. The Canadian Air and Space Conservancy scheduled to open in in Edenvale, Ontario has a full-size replica of the plane, while the Avro Museum outside Calgary , Alberta , is building a flying replica. One of the largest surviving pieces of the Arrow — a nose section marked with the words Cut Here beside a jagged blowtorch line — remains on display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa , Ontario.

In September , members of Raise the Arrow a group of historians, scientists, archeologists and businesspeople discovered an arrow-shaped object in Lake Ontario around Prince Edward County. Over several weeks, the team had collected data from the bottom of the lake using underwater sonar equipment.

They recovered the object from the lake the next year. It turned out not to be one of the nine scale models of the Arrow, but a smaller, earlier test device. Avro Arrow Digital Archives Illustrated fact-filled site about the manufacture and testing of the trailblazing Avro Arrow aircraft and its ultimate demise.

Raise the Arrow Read more about the test model recovery project. Avro Arrow Watch a Heritage Minute feature about the political intrigue and controversy surrounding the demise of the Avro Arrow fighter jet.

See also related online learning resources. From Historica Canada. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me. I forgot my password. Why sign up? Create Account. Suggest an Edit. Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below.

Accessed 12 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 07, ; Last Edited May 27, These doubts carried well into the subsequent Diefenbaker Conservative government. Diefenbaker, coming from the Prairie farmlands, had little appreciation for technical projects and sought to cancel one of the Liberal major programs in order to find ways of giving more money to Saskatchewan farmers.

The scepticisms pertaining to the Arrow program that arose during the Laurent era grew during the Diefenbaker era, despite early concessions regarding the weapon system for the Arrow. Principle among these misgivings was the cost — according to government budget reports, Canada could only afford either the Arrow, or the Bomarc , not both.

Furthermore, the Diefenbaker government noted that the cost per plane was more than American aircraft. Ironically, the company pleading to deaf ears noted that once development costs finished, new copies could be made significantly cheaper than American aircraft. These scepticisms combined with the frightening development of ballistic missiles in the Soviet Union in the late 50s, particularly the Sputnik launch, and Soviet espionage, helped bring about the end for the Arrow program.

The Sputnik launch had spread widespread fear that the Soviet Union could now attack the west with ballistic missiles, instead of bombers. As such, a number of Western officials naturally feared a missile gap , where NATO would potentially lose to the Soviet Union in an all out war.

NATO countries sought to counter the Soviet missile threat by replacing manned interceptors with surface to air missiles, such as the American Sage Bomarc missile system. This shift was based on the assumption that manned interceptors would be unable to counter Soviet missiles. After the cancellation, the RCAF advised the NAE, which throughout had been a harsh critic of the program, that five aircraft and 14 engines were available for supersonic research.

However, upon Government orders all aircraft were cut up and sold as scrap and all foreign contracts relating to the Iroquois engines were not to be honoured. At the behest of the US, the Diefenbaker government was forced to cancel the Arrow program, and take the more expensive 2 nd hand Voodoos along with the Sage Bomarc system.

The rationale cited by Diefenbaker was that the Americans were going to place Bomarcs below the Great Lakes if Canada did not take them, thereby putting major Canadian cities in the fallout zones of destroyed Soviet missiles that came over Canada, in the event of war. American companies and government agencies such as NASA immediately following the cancellation hired the majority of the workers, resulting in history-making events, such as the Moon landings in the mid s.

Since the cancellation of the Arrow, Canada has invested billions of dollars procuring American aircraft that were poorer than the Arrow performance wise yet exponentially more expensive.

Today, 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the RCAF is once again considering buying exorbitantly expensive American aircraft to replace its ageing CF Hornets , owing to Canadian reliance on the US to help Canadian industries compete and survive across the globe. In a foreshadowing of the fate of the Arrow, American interest in manufacturing the plane was ignored and workers cut up the Jetliner prototype. The interceptor had to be able to fly and fire at 50,ft and speeds over Mach 1.

It had to be to operate in the harsh conditions of the Arctic and be able to fly the long distances that this required. To achieve these goals, the Avro engineers created the first non-experimental fly-by-wire control system a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with a computer-controlled system in an aircraft and a navigational computer that used real-time telemetry.

They used new materials in its airframe, and, at a sister company, designed and built the new powerful, lightweight, supersonic Iroquois engine. To make the most of its capabilities, the interceptor spawned a new weapons programme called Astra nicknamed "Astronomically Expensive" , and a new missile.

The Arrow was so advanced that Canada didn't have all the facilities for testing it. The Canadians and their aircraft impressed their American colleagues — a calling card that had lasting consequences for the future of humanity. The Arrow achieved another first. It was the first time that engineers built prototypes of such a sophisticated aircraft using production tooling rather than handmade by engineers. This process meant that it was a mere 28 months from the first drawing of the Arrow to its rollout, and by February the production line was up and running.

By the time the loudspeaker crackled into life on Black Friday, there were five flying prototypes. There was another fitted with an Iroquois engine nearly ready to fly and another four in various states of assembly. In the factory were the majority of parts for the production aircraft. Proposals for a Mach 3 and a hypersonic — Mach 5 — version of the Arrow were on the drawing board, as was a "zero-length launch Arrow", which would blast into the air from a raised launch pad like Thunderbird 1 from the science fiction television series.

The government had cancelled the Astra system already. One Iroquois engine was given to Britain to help its supersonic airliner project. Yet, the government didn't pursue the project, despite commercial interest. CF Roll-Out Ceremony. On April 18, , Arrow for the second flight that day, was preparing to make a speed run to altitude. As he opened up the throttles the Arrow pulled away from the chase planes and toped out at 50, feet and at Mach 1.

It was noted that was still climbing and accelerating when Zurakowski cut the throttles to level off at 50, feet. Later that year Arrow reached the top speed in the flight test program so far of Mach 1.

It should be noted this level of performances was achieved with the interim JP engines. From this point on the Arrow was restricted in speed, so Arrow with the Iroquois engines could try for the World Speed record. This decision was made so an all Canadian aircraft could show the world what Canada had done. Also it was hoped that if the Arrow with the Iroquois engines held the World Speed record that it might help in promoting the sales of the Arrow.

Some people disagreed with this decision and believed that Arrows should have set the World Speed record with the JP engines before Arrow arrived. Than with Arrow , we could advance the record using the Iroquois engines to show how advanced the engine and Arrow was. Sadly, however, Arrow did not make it off the assembly line before "Black Friday. The Arrow and Avro drew much criticism and bad ink from this group through the press, and this helped the Government in its ability to cancel the program.

At cancellation Arrows' had logged some 70 hours and had reached a top speed of Mach 1. With the majority in the government, Prime Minister Diefenbaker and his cabinet went about reviewing all government expenditures looking for cost cutting measures to implement their plans for new programs.

Some of the new programs were nothing more than basic social justice items, whereas others had intrinsic merit. October 4,, the day of the Arrow's roll-out, coincided to the surprise of the world with the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik. This launch changed the thinking of Western Governments and Military Leaders alike. The current thinking was that the Russians were behind the United States in rocket technology. The launch of Sputnik confirmed that they were not, and put fear in the western governments.

The continual beeping reminded them of the advancement by the Russians and caused a change in military thinking.

If Russia could launch a satellite into orbit, it would be easy to replace the satellite with a nuclear warhead and return it from orbit over an enemy. Many military leaders thought that the age of manned aircraft was over and the age of missiles was here.

This theory leads the Canadian Government and military leaders to believe that the Arrow would be obsolete before it went into production, and therefore should be replaced by a missile system.

Another problem facing Avro and the Canadian Government was the lack of foreign sales, particularly to the United States. At one point in the development of the Arrow, the USAF offered to buy 2 squadrons for placement in and operated by Canada.

After in the United States and the election in Canada, support for the Arrow started to dwindle. The CIA was using the cover of the U-2 as a weather research aircraft to over fly and to spy on other countries. With knowledge of these two aircraft CF and U-2 , John Foster Dulles in his role as the U S Secretary of State was in a position of knowing the aircraft's capabilities and any vulnerabilities.

Therefore he could not let the development of the CF continue, if the U-2 over flights were to continue. One of the problems in Canada after was with the new Chief of Staff for the military. General Foulkes believed that the Arrow was obsolete and wanted it replaced by a missile defence system.

The strain on the budget was so great that projects either had to be shelved or scraped all together. From this meeting the decision to cancel the CF Arrow program was easy. No, Arrows meant, no possibility of nuclear fall out over densely populated areas in Canada. Avro was kept in the dark about the decision, and found support of the Arrow dropping in Canada and the United States. The Diefenbaker government continued assurances to Avro that no decision on the Arrow would be made, before the review in March The telegram informed them of the termination of contracts and ordering the company to cease work immediately.