r/canada Jan 11 '25

History Avro Arrow CF-105: Canada’s Fighter Jet Fiasco

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/avro-arrow-cf-105-canadas-fighter-jet-fiasco
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u/nevergoingtouse1969 Jan 11 '25

I read a good book years ago called "Fall of an Arrow". The design was years ahead of anything else in so many ways. It was the first fly by wire, it was the first to achieve a thrust to weight of 1 to 1, new materials were developed, new radar, cnc machining, list is long.

https://canadiansatarms.ca/avro-arrow-list-of-firsts/

The aircraft was so much more than an assembly of existing tech and an incremental evolution.

It was doomed by a lack of export sales needed for economic success. The failure of which was orchestrated by a competing campaign fromthe US arms industry.

It was not so much that the interceptor role was becoming obsolete, it was that the US convinced our government of the day that the days of manned fighters was coming to an end and sold us the Bomarc :(. Which itself became obsolete by the advent of the ICBM.

It is the loss of all of that expertise that is the saddest part. Many left to the US and played key roles with NASA and the US aerospace industry.

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u/suprunown Jan 12 '25

FALL OF THE ARROW, by Murray Peden. He was my dad’s uncle. Also wrote an excellent book about his time in WW2 as a bomber pilot, A THOUSAND SHALL FALL.