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WHTBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1989, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN THE ARROW It must have been the summer of 1958 - I would have been thirteen years old. I remember watching the skies with my parents and brothers one summer afternoon at the cottage for a few seconds glimpse of an aircraft streaking across the sky at a thousand miles an hour. This was not an ordinary aircraft. It was regarded at the time as the pinnacle of world aircraft technology and more important -it was Canadian - the Avro Arrow. The flight we were watching for was only a test flight. My dad was a professor of physics and knew many of the scien- tists and engineers who designed ·the Arrow. Through these contacts, he knew where the test flights might go. Thirty years later, the memory is somewhat vague but we saw a vapor trail that afternoon that we assumed was part of the Arrow flight. Whether we actually heard the sonic boom as it broke the sound barrier or whether that was merely a suggestive memory I can no longer recall. But the memory lingers not so much for what we saw or heard but rather the sense of pride in this piece of Canadian technology. That was one of the last flights of the Arrow because on February 20 of the following year - thirty years ago this week, its development was cancelled by the Conservative government of John Diefenbaker. The irony is that the real Arrow never flew. The flight we watched that summer afternoon had been an airframe test only. The Iroquois engines, -the most powerful jet engines in the world, designed specifically by Canadians for this plane, were yet to be installed. On Feb. 20, 1959, the Arrow MkII complete with engines was only a few weeks away from its first test flight. It was undergoing final preparations in a hangar at Malton. The MkII would cruise at twice the speed of sound and it was 100% Canadian. Nothing of that technology remains. The government took the peculiarly vindictive route of destroying the six Arrows that had already been built including the Iroquois engines. Fourteen thousand people were out of work - some of the brightest minds in the country. The best were quickly snapped up by American aircraft companies who reaped the benefits of the more than $300 million invested by the Canadian taxpayers. Nothing was left, not even a specimen for the national museum. Nothing left but the dream. Few events in Canadian history are as deeply etched in the Canadian consciousness as that single decision. It ranks with the conscription crises during the twó world wars. Perhaps one day, the free trade debate will rank with these as one of the significant crossroads of our history. The announced basis of the decision - that jet interceptor technology was obsolete in the nuclear age - was proven patently false only a couple of years later when the same Conservative government announced the purchase of inferior (but cheaper) American planes to do the same job. But in 1959 it was Bomarc missles complete with nuclear warheads which were to replace the Arrow. Perhaps the American military really believed that interceptors were dead or perhaps they simply pulled a fast one on a naive Canadian government. Perhaps it was simply a convenient explanation for a political problem. The not- so-public reasons of huge cost overruns, a financial sink-hole and a corporate bureaucracy out of control may have been more valid reasons. Hindsight in this case does not yield easy answers. The technology, the costs (both political and economic), and the manner in which it was planned and later cancelled all remain controversial thirty years later. Regardless of whether the cancellation was necessary or not, it destroyed a branch of Canadian technology in which we led the world. Our biggest failure as an industrialized nation has always been our inability to sell our technology. Before the Arrow, A.V. Roe had devoloped North America's first (and the world's second by only two weeks) commercial jetliner, yet failed to sell a single one. While the American press raved and the airplane's designer was awarded the Wright medal, the Canadian government went out of its way to purchase two British Comets. Atomic Energy of Canada designed the world's safest and most cost-effective nuclear generating plants yet our nuclear industry struggles along on occasional third-world orders. In the seventies, we developed Telidon yet couldn't sell it. We bemoan the lack of research and development in this country yet do little to make sure it stays here. The decision to cancel the Arrow was based largely on the apparent prospect of neyer selling a single one outside Canada. That made the cost per plane prohibitive. In the world of military hardware, governments don't necessarily beat a path to your door just because you've built a "better mousetrap". Politics is more important. The Arrow changed our history. Lt changed the way we look at ourselves. The power and speed of the Arrow becamne a symbol of our infinite capabilities but its cancellation was symbol of our national inferiority complex. I'M A BIT OF AN ALTHOR MYSELF! REVRSES OR HOW TO USE RELIGIOM TO PUT UFE BACK INTO ANOTHERWLSE /SLUGGISH ,REV0LUTION by ii = ~~TD BROCK STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM DUNDAS STREET, C. 1906 These stores with the exception of the Dominion Bank at left, were built between 1878 and 1883 after the great fire of Oct. 16, 1877. The Dominion Bank, the only building in the block to survive the fire, was built in 1874. Whitby Archives photo 10 YEARS AGO from the Wednesday, February 21, 1979 edition of the WHITBY FREE PRESS • The Camp X museum, proposed in January 1978, is being scaled down and a journal of the camp's activities will be published. * The Town Council has scrapped its proposed mandatory smoke detector by-law after two readings because of public objections. • IT' Cannon Electric and Croven Ltd. of Whitby have received $1.5 million in contracts from Lockhead Aircraft Corporation. 25 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, February 20, 1964 edition of the WHITBY WEEKLY NEWS • John Pantony of Dupont Canada is the 1964 President of the Whitby Chamber of Commerce. • The framework of the Lake Ontario Steel plant is rising on 300 acres of land on the shore of Lake Ontario. • Payment of Whitby's portion of funds to purchase land for a conservation area near Brooklin has been delayed by the Ontario Municipal Board. 75 YEARS AGO from the Thursday, February 19, 1914 edition of the WHITBY GAZETTE AND CHRONICLE • A deputation has asked the Board of Education to fit up the high school gymnasium as a meeting place for young men, at a cost of $1,200. • W.G.P. Hood of Toronto plans to open a brick yard in Whitby during the summer. * The Eaton Orchestra of Toronto performed at the Ontario Ladies' College Conversazione which was attended by many visitors from that city. • The home of two workers on the asyluin construction site was destroyed by fire at midnight on Feb. 17.