With its first flight in 1958, the Avro Aircraft CF-105 Arrow appeared to be Canada's greatest aeronautical achievement. As the world's fastest and most advanced aircraft at that time, the Arrow, flying at twice the speed of sound over the Canadian north, was to attack Soviet bombers with air-to-air nuclear missiles. Also during the mid-1950's, the Royal Canadian Air Force, with its 27 fighter jet squadrons assigned to NATO and NORAD, was respected as one of the great air forces in the western alliance. But Canada quickly tumbled from this threshold of aeronautical leadership with the sudden cancellation and destruction of the Arrow. Fred Smye was in on the genesis of Canada's post WW II air power and describes the decade of innovation and growth in the nation's extraordinary aviation industry that once enabled a unique and independent air defence strategy. Smye also reveals the misinformation, misjudgments, flawed economics and political machinations that forced him to give the orders to cut up the existing Arrows when the Diefenbaker government cancelled the program on February 20, 1959. That "Black Friday" devastated Canada's aviation industry, throwing tens of thousands of workers out of highly skilled jobs and forcing an exodus of scientists and engineers to the U.S. and Britain. Canada subsequently surrendered its independent air defence strategy and came to rely on the U.S. for aviation industry sub-contracts and a meager supply of obsolete military aircraft for a diminished air force.
About the Author: Fred T. Smye, once President and General Manager of Avro Aircraft Limited, first worked with the Canadian aircraft industry during World War II as an official of the Department of Munitions and Supply in 1940, becoming Director of Aircraft Production. In 1944 he was appointed Assistant General Manager of Federal Aircraft Limited in Montreal to wind up the Canadian Government's aircraft production program. At the close of the war he played a key role in establishing the British Hawker Siddeley Group in Canada through the formation of A.V. Roe Canada Limited. On August 1, 1945, Fred became the first employee of A.V. Roe Canada at Malton, Ontario; and with the official formation of Avro Aircraft on December 1, 1945, he was appointed Assistant General Manager. Fred's friends and colleagues had always acknowledged his role as the driving force behind the administration of all the Avro projects: the Jetliner, the CF-100 the Orenda engines to power it, and the Arrow supersonic interceptor. As President of Avro Aircraft, he was largely responsible for the phenomenal growth and success of the company and its contribution to Canadian aviation-until the demise of Avro in 1960 after the cancellation of the Arrow by the Diefenbaker government. Before he died in 1985, he had the satisfaction of seeing a new generation of Canadians re-discover the Arrow epic through publications, radio, and television.