The Empire Strikes Out - Canada's Defence & The Commonwealth Space Program - Part 5 by Robert Godwin

From The Space Library

Contents 1 Replacing the Squadrons 2 The Arrow 3 The Cancellation 4 Reasons for the Cancellation 5 Footnotes

Replacing the Squadrons

Two weeks after Canada geared up its aerospace industry to produce the F-104G the USAF announced that they would forthwith be automating their own F-104s to be used as drones for target practice.^[1] No aircraft had ever been relegated to such a fate before.

Meanwhile, the Hawker 1127, which could have been built at Avro and is still the world's only successful vertical take-off fighter, would instead be built under license in the USA. After being continuously upgraded it is expected to remain in active service with the US Marine Corps until 2025, making it the most successful fighter in history. The design has not become obsolete, after almost 60 years, even though it is not a supersonic aircraft. It couldn't have effectively defended Canada but it would have made up for that shortcoming with the balance of trade it would have generated, while simultaneously keeping Canada's team of experts employed. The fact that Avro was already doing advanced vertical take-off work for the US Army made it an even more logical choice. But with the government's decision to select the F-104G, what little hope that may have remained at Avro was now dashed.

Canada still had to deal with the "new" paradigm, defending against Soviet bombers, which, despite a stream of predictions to the contrary, hadn't all disappeared. By late December discussions were underway to purchase McDonnell-Douglas Voodoo aircraft from the United States to reequip the domestic squadrons. USAF General Kuter during a visit to Ottawa said "There will always be need for a manned fighter," somewhat belatedly agreeing with Canada's Chief of Air Staff.^[2]

The Voodoo was apparently capable of intercepting Soviet bombers since it could carry nuclear missiles and had a speed of 1100mph and a range of 1500 miles. None of its specifications matched those of the Arrow which had more range, was faster and could carry more armaments.^[3] However, the Voodoo was cheaper.

The Arrow

One of the most often quoted critical comments leveled at the Arrow came from a noted aviation expert who said that it "wasn't anything special." In contrast some advocates of the aircraft claimed it was better than anything else flying, even today. Both are imprecise statements. The Arrow was special in the sense that it was built to handle "all weather", including the harsh Canadian arctic, over a very large patrol area, with a large inboard weapon system which meant it could achieve and maintain extremely high speed. No other fighter/interceptor was able to do this until the deployment of the F-22 Raptor in 1996.

The size of the weapon's pod meant that it could have handled air-launched nuclear weapons giving it the same stand-off capability as the large supersonic bombers which were available at that time. The critics rarely ever question the unparalleled power of the Iroquois engine which spoke for itself when it nearly ripped the housings out of the test-stand in Malton, Ontario. At 25,000 lbs of thrust (with afterburner) it was more powerful than anything available elsewhere, in part due to its revolutionary design. A modified Boeing B-47 had flown with the Iroquois and the pilot had throttled the opposite engines almost to idle to compensate.

Even the Velvet Glove missiles the Arrow would have carried would have used propellant designed by Dickinson and others at CARDE, specifically created with the Canadian Arctic in mind and able to withstand the extreme temperature shifts without cracking (a very bad thing to happen in a solid fuel rocket.)

The Arrow was better than anything else, for Canada, at that time. Nine squadrons could have patrolled all 3.5 million square miles. The aircraft excelled in many other critical ways but to say it was superior in every way to modern aircraft is clearly not true. It would be extremely vulnerable to modern radar since the notion of "stealth" technology didn't even exist in 1959, and it wasn't intended to be a light-weight fighter.

Randall Whitcomb, a pilot who flew in the Canadian Air Force in multiple fighters including the CF-18 Hornet, conducted an unprecedented analysis of the Arrow. His conclusion in 2008 was,

"The high performance, even when heavily loaded, combined with the capability of the kinds of weapons it could carry, gave the Arrow more potential flexibility than most aircraft built to this day."^[4]

In July of 1961 a batch of 66 Voodoos were delivered to the Canadian Air Force to defend the home territory; a job that the Air Force had told the government would require well over a hundred aircraft.^[5]

The Cancellation

Diefenbaker's cabinet had been advised on April 28 1958 that, in his words, Canada needed an "interceptor that had to be capable of flying at speeds in excess of one thousand miles per hour and at altitudes above fifty thousand feet." Diefenbaker then said, "The CF-105 or Avro Arrow, the early flight tests of which indicated its ability to meet, within circumscribed limits, these operational demands."

He continued, "Certainly the Bomarc serves as a fitting example of why governments are not more decisive on defence issues; the British Blue Streak program might serve as another."

After explaining his reasoning for cancelling the Arrow contract, which was complex and involved budgets and exchange rates and other commitments he felt he had to prioritize, he then stated in his memoir, "It was roughly calculated that we would lose five votes for every person whose unemployment was directly attributable to this decision." His argument was that even though he had calculated the political cost of his decision he would not be "blackmailed" by Avro or the press into changing his mind.

Tellingly he then stated, "There is no doubt from a construction standpoint, the Avro Arrow was an impressive aircraft, superior to any other known contemporary all-weather fighter...the Arrow's Iroquois engine boasted the highest thrust, the lowest specific weight, the greatest mass flow, and the greatest potential of all known engines under development."

He then asserted that it didn't have the range necessary for the job "The CF-105 would be able to do nothing but intercept, and only within a range of 150 to 200 miles from its base." This was a completely inaccurate statement, the Arrow had a supersonic combat range of over 710 statute miles and it was more than capable of keeping up with the Voodoo.^[6] The government seemed to constantly confuse the numbers for range with radius of action; the latter usually stated as half of the former. The Arrow's combat range, radius of action and time on station to engage in combat was superior in every way to the Voodoo.

It would only be years after the fact that Diefenbaker took the position that the Arrow was inferior and incapable of performing the task for which it was designed. This was in complete contradiction to his own statements of 1959. George Hees, Diefenbaker's Minister of Transport, took this claim to an absurd level during an interview on television in 1979 (while still an active politician). He stated that the reason the Arrow had been cancelled was because it didn't have the fuel capacity or ceiling to intercept the Soviet bombers at 50,000 feet. This was completely in contradiction of both the original 1954 specification requirements of the aircraft and the actual documented evidence of the test flights.^[7] Indeed, had this been true the design would never have been approved by the RCAF, Hugh Dryden, Hawker Siddeley or the National Research Council. Not to mention the fact that this had never been put forward as an issue in 1959, even by Diefenbaker.

During his face-off with Crawford Gordon when challenged about the impact to Canada's aerospace production capacity, Diefenbaker later stated, "I could agree with Gordon that it was important for Canada to have an independent aircraft industry. If Avro and Orenda went into liquidation, we would still have one: De Havilland would not be affected, nor would the Transport Marine Aircraft Section of Canadair."

Diefenbaker's contempt for Avro is plain to see in his memoir. He stated that, "A.V. Roe since the end of World War 2 had lived and grown rich on Canadian defence contracts." Which seems to completely overlook the remarkable achievement of building the first commercial jet passenger aircraft in North America, the C-102 Jetliner which had already been sold in quantity to several airlines but was ordered to be put on the shelf by the Canadian government when the Korean war broke out. The St Laurent government had also foisted the Douglas Sparrow II onto Avro, despite being warned of the costs by the contractor. Diefenbaker's government agreed to replace the Douglas Sparrow II with the Hughes Falcon at the last possible minute, in late 1958, effectively dropping the cost of each Arrow by $3.5M, a massive saving on the final unit cost of each aircraft. Money and time had been wasted but revealing the truth behind these government flip-flops would only have strengthened Avro's position and do nothing to bolster Diefenbaker's decision to cancel the aircraft.

Reasons for the Cancellation

The original plan was for A.V. Roe to build approximately 500 Arrows at a cost of $2M each, or $1BN. When the government began to believe that aircraft interceptors would soon be obsolete the number required was dropped to 100. This later allowed the detractors to claim that a single aircraft cost more than $10M, and was therefore wildly over-priced. However, at $10M, even adjusted for inflation, this was less than half the price of the Douglas F-18 purchased by Canada in 1980 and less than half the projected price of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. In his memoirs Diefenbaker admitted that the order had dropped to a fifth and thus the unit cost had gone up five times. He then pointed out that by the time the Arrow was ready "substantially cheaper United States interceptors would be available at end-of-production prices."

Members of Diefenbaker's cabinet had urged him to keep the Sparrow II because it was cutting edge technology and instead advised him to make Avro terminate the Iroquois engine. When it was realised that this wouldn't create anything like the same savings as scrapping the Sparrow, that conversation ended. But after having asserted that weapon systems were becoming obsolete as fast as they were produced Diefenbaker was essentially admitting that he was content to buy the F-104G and the F-101 aircraft, not because they were more modern, but because they were cheaper.

The government already had a commitment to 37 Arrows which would, when combined with the 100 operational aircraft have dropped the unit cost even lower. At the end of the debate the Diefenbaker government testified that each aircraft would have cost $12.5M if the Sparrow II was added, and $7.8M each without.^[8] The A.V. Roe company's actual figures were $609M total, or $4.4M each for 137 aircraft, if the Sparrow was dropped. $379M of that had already been spent and another $24M would be incurred for cancellation penalties. Avro even managed to persuade the USAF to provide the Falcon missile system for free, which would have reduced costs by another $12M, a fact which was reported by the company to the Defence Minister Raymond O'Hurley in writing. The letter's existence was subsequently denied by Pearkes during the investigation in July 1960.^[9]

In the final analysis the reason given by the government for cancelling the Arrow evolved over time through three phases:

Reason for considering cancellation:

• Manned interceptors were obsolete

Reason for cancellation in light of backlash:

• The aircraft was too expensive

Reason for cancelling long after the fact

• The aircraft was obsolete or ineffective.

The first excuse was quickly negated, first by the testimony of almost every major Air Force officer in NORAD, then by the cancellation of the Bomarc and other surface-to-air interceptor programs, and finally by history.

The second excuse only lasted briefly because of the manipulation of the price from $4.4M to $7.8M. Which, even if true, was still a bargain.

The third excuse could only hold any water because all of the aircraft had been destroyed, essentially removing most of the evidence. However, even the man principally involved in the cancellation, Diefenbaker, admitted two decades later that the aircraft was almost certainly the most advanced in the world in 1959, despite what Hees said two years later.

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Footnotes

1. ^ ^{Toronto Star Aug 31 1959}
2. ^ ^{Globe and Mail Dec 30 1959}
3. ^ ^{Cold War Tech War Apogee Books; Randall Whitcomb 2008}
4. ^ ^Ibid
5. ^ ^{Globe and Mail Jul 25 1961}
6. ^ ^{Canadian Aviation and the Avro Arrow; Fred Smye 1985}
7. ^ ^Ibid
8. ^ ^{General Pearkes Testimony, Special Committee on Defence Expenditures, July 1960}
9. ^ ^{Canadian Aviation and the Avro Arrow; Fred Smye 1985}