Anyone visit the Toronto Aerospace Museum?

[Admiral Beez]

I'm interested in visiting the TAM, but would like a view reviews from the group beforehand.

I'm especially interested in seeing how the old Lancaster has been restored. I'm still annoyed that they took out the Sherman tank, Lancaster and Anti-Aircraft and Anti-Tank weapons from IIRC Confederation Park. They've been replaced by some awful IMO statue. I still wonder what happened to that tank. Apparently the War Museum in Ottawa has a warehouse full of tanks waiting for the new buildings to be completed.

Anyway, back on topic... any review of the TAM?

 

[GeekyBoyTO]

Haven't been - but wanted to. And I am glad they are finally restoring the Lancaster - leaving it to rot on the pedestal is kinda unbecoming.

I thought there is an ongoing project to rebuild a full size Avro Arrow as well at TAM - not sure.

re: CWM

The building is going to be quite interesting - apparently, a lot of the interior will be done in raw concrete, giving it a "bunker feel" - quite appropriate.

GB

 

[GeekyBoyTO]

More info @ Toronto Aerospace Museum

Apparently they are building a full size mockup of the Arrow indeed. Too bad nothing will work.

They really should consider rebuilding a functional copy of the plane. Noseart should be Diefenbaker with a big circle and a dash across. Shame.

GB

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'd love to see a flying Arrow. However, in the end, if we had built the actual production aircraft, we would have likely have done a Candu, and sold Arrow (and the design) to India, China, Iran and the other nasties of today.

It would do much good for Canada's reputation to have DeHav Canada aircraft bombing Kurdish villages or Pakistani towns. History has shown us that we didn't need the Arrow, and we still have a strong aerospace industry in the civilian field (Bombardier is the first or second largest regional aircraft maker in the world).

 

[ganjavih]

Yeah, good thing we didn't give the technology to India... they're bombing Pakistani towns all the time.

 

[bizorky]

Geekyboy,

The St.Laurant Liberals would have cancelled the Arrow themselves, but they were facing an election and wanted to cancel it only after being re-elected. After the Diefenbaker Conservatives got in they saw the Arrow project for what it was: too much money for an aircraft that was not particularly versatile. No need to be concerned about the Arrow as a bomber; it was designed to be a high speed interceptor only. The Americans had already cancelled the F-108, an aircraft with a similar mission to the Arrow. Instead, they were seeking out a multi-role aircraft design. One of the projects pursued turned out to be the F-4 Phantom, one of the best military aircraft ever built.

 

[GeekyBoyTO]

bizorky:

The functional role of the Arrow is arguable, no doubt - but my beef with its' cancellation is more to do with what it did to our aerospace industry. Let's face it, as a result, we did not really have much of one, CAE/bombardier notwithstanding.

GB

 

[bizorky]

Actually, the ending of world war two brought about far more layoffs from Canada's aircraft manufacturing sector than the cancellation of the Arrow. Canada's aviation manufacturing was reduced to making cooking pots and spoons, among other things. If you really want to find a sad chapter in Canadian aviation manufacturing you need look no further than the Avro C102 Jetliner, the second jet-powered passenger aircraft in the world after the DeHavilland Comet. The C102 had the potential to become a major intercity jet with a range similar to the Boeing 737! The C102 was cancelled due to the Cold War and the Korean war and the need to build CF-100 Canucks in large numbers.

As for the Arrow it had already generated $400 million dollars (1950's dollars!) in development costs at the time of its cancellation. Projected costs for each aircraft went from about $1.5 million per unit to over $9 million per unit. It would have been next to impossible to export this aircraft because of its cost, and due to the fact that any nation with military aircraft manufacturing was ver likely to protect its own businesses. Avro Canada was a subsiduary of a British parent company which saw an opportunity for a lucrative government subsidized project, one that they believed would be automatically protected from cancellation. In essence, they bet the company and lost.

The Arrow also had a number of large (and expensive) technical hurdles to overcome. It was a missile and rocket-dependent aircraft (with no guns) designed for high altitude interception. It's weapons systems were nowhere near ready at the time of the first test flight - and were quite over budget. Add to that, some engineers at the National Research Council questioned whether the aircraft was in fact capable of delivering its promised abilities. It is likely that at low altitudes, the Arrow would have been no match for something like an F-4. But this point is moot as the Arrow was never intended for such flying.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Agreed, the Arrow was solely a high speed intercepter, but if it has suceeded, the next step would have been to build either a bomber/multi-role variant (if a delta winged Mirage and SAAB can do it, so can an Arrow), not new-build something equally bomber worthy.

Even if Avro Canada had suceeded, it still would have, by the mid-1990s, have been bought up by McDonald Douglas, General Dynamics, Lockheed or Boeing. Don't fool yourself into thinking that if we had only made the Arrow that we would have an independent aerospace industry today (with the exception of Bombardier's regional aircraft). Even the Canada-arm for NASA is built by an American owned company now.

 

[bizorky]

I am not fooled at all. As I mentioned, Avro Canada was owned by A.V.Roe and Hawker Siddley of England. It was not a Canadian owned company.

As for the potential of an Arrow bomber variant, the Arrow was a large, heavy aircraft and probably would not have had good slow and low flying capabilities. It was never designed for such flying. Additionally, mounting munitions on the wings would probably degraded performance considerably. This was a pure interceptor aircraft, and probably would have filled that role quite well had it been built.