Re: "Federal funding helps aerospace centre lift off," Aug. 25.
It is great to see a new impetus for aircraft design coming to Victoria.
I worked on the final assembly of the CF-100 jet fighter in 1952-53 at Avro Malton in Ontario. During that time, we saw the prototype of the Avro Jetliner C-102 in front of the hangar.
The C-102 made its maiden flight on Aug. 10, 1949, shortly after the British Vickers Viscount. The Viscount went on to full production. The Avro C-102, on a trial mail flight across Canada, did it in half the time of a conventional propeller driven plane.
The workforce at Malton of about 15,000 workers was trained to build aircraft for the war effort and continued to work on the CF-100 until the useful service life was done. Then, research was begun on the design of the Avro Arrow.
The concept was completely new for a jet plane that had to start instantly in all weather and reach 20,000 metres at mach 5 to intercept oncoming missiles. This could only be done with the Iroquois jet engine. Had Avro Arrow No. 6 been completed, it could have done that.
I remember Black Friday at Avro when all of us were dismissed, a result of prime minister John Diefenbaker's austerity measures.
You can say that the Avro Arrow was an instrument of war, that it was too expensive to make, but it was the dream of some great minds that went elsewhere - to the space program in the U.S.
We still have young minds in Canada with native genius that will design things that we have not even dreamed of.
Steve Watson
Duncan
