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I am an Arrowhead.
It flew before I was ever even born.
I often tell people that I can not bring myself ever to vote for the party of Diefenbaker because he cancelled the Arrow.
The Arrow was years ahead of its time. It was the first Delta Winged fighter in the world. It flew faster and could perform better in 1959 than the crappy F-18's we fly today.
I have had the pleasure of meeting Dr. James Floyd (head of Engineering at AVRO Canada during the Jetliner Era and of course, ARROW) I have also met the original test pilot - Jan Zurakowski who recently died.
Dr. Floyd still lives in Etobicoke. After the ARROW was cancelled, he went to work in Britain for Hawkery Sidedly the parent company of AVRO (AV Roe) and went on to be part of the design team of this other plane called Concorde.
I can understand that the ARROW was an expensive project, but I can never ever ever fathom why Dief totally killed the project. Maybe a scaling back of the program, but to completely and utterly kill it, and to destroy all the working planes, destroy all the engineering drawings, destroy the technology behind it, to destroy the company that built it.
It's just fucking nuts. It paints a picture of a mad man obsessed. Of a complete an utter fool.
What a waste.
You may be interested to know that there is a legend that one ARROW was spared the welder's cutting torch. God I wish it were true.
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