Hunt for the Avro

[Warhippy]

This is actually really exciting.  Since the report by a former canadian service member and numerous aerospace engineers was commissioned that stated that it would be cheaper and more viable to simply rebuild the Avro Arrow program and retrofit the former platform to modern needs and specifications there has been an ongoing hunt for blue prints models and more.  This was in direct contrast to the purchase price of the F-35's

 

Now a canadian company is searching for the scaled down models in Lake Ontario  for..."unspecified reasons" but noted as historical and for cultural identity.

 

This is a program that if reborn could add tens of thousands of well paying jobs to the canadian workforce and potentially billions to our national GDP

 

*also, listen to Deifenbakkers pathetic excuse for why he scrapped it at the behest of the Americans.  Simply sad, knowing how many of those engineers left the country to go work for NASA in return for missile placements in canada during the cold war.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/a-new-hunt-for-avro-arrow-models-in-the-depths-of-lake-ontario-this-time-the-search-will-be-different-1.4205184

 

"Cut up with torches, hammered down with steel balls like they destroy buildings," described a photographer who rented a plane to take footage of the destruction, since media were not allowed in the facility.

'Cut up with torches, hammered down with steel balls like they destroy buildings.'- Description of photographer who captured footage of Avro Arrow destruction

It's believed that nine three-metre long, or one-eighth scale models of the Arrow fitted with sensors were strapped onto rockets, and fired over the lake.

Today, with the help of equipment that assisted the successful Franklin expedition in 2016, the details of a search for those models were outlined.

"We're not trying to rewrite the history of what happened to the Avro program, this is a search and ideally recovery," said John Burzynski, the president and CEO of Osisko Mining — the man who will lead the search team.

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Burzynski said the idea has been a work in progress for the last year and a half and his group has recently acquired all the necessary permits to conduct the search and possible recovery.

The mission, a collaborative effort by several private companies in assistance with the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Military Institute, will begin next week.

John Burzynski will lead the search team, which starts work in Lake Ontario next week. (Makda Ghebreslassie/CBC)

A Newfoundland company, Kraken Sonar Systems, was awarded the $500,000 contract which will involve deploying its state-of-the-art ThunderFish underwater vehicle and AquaPix sonar system to capture high-quality images of the lake bed.

This won't be the first search for the models, but Burzynski hopes it will be the first successful search. 

Theories about location abound

"There's a lot of different stories about where we think they could be," said David Shea, vice-president of engineering at Kraken, the company that created the sonar equipment to be used.  

David Shea, with Kraken Sonar Systems, will provide an unmanned, untethered automated underwater vehicle to assist in the search. (Makda Ghebreslassie/CBC)

They know the models took off from Point Petre in Prince Edward County, more than 200 kilometres away from Toronto. 

The search grid covers water ranging in depth from five metres closer to shore and 100 metres farther out in the lake, Shea said.

The mission will run the underwater sonar equipment for eight hours a day, after which the data will be downloaded and analyzed by the team of scientists, which will also include archeologists. They expect to search an area about half the size of Vancouver, or 64 square kilometres.

 

 

 

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A 1980 CBC report says after the destruction of the existing Arrow planes — created based on the models now in Lake Ontario — pieces were sold to a Hamilton junk dealer, for 6.5 cents per pound. At 67,000 pounds, a scrapped Arrow would have cost you $4,355.

Impact of cancellation still felt

"There was such a brain drain in Canada because we lost such a core of our aerospace industry," said Erin Gregory, a curator with the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. "It resonates with people through the years ... you're looking at thousands and thousands of people who lost their jobs."

Jack Hurst was a teenager when he was hired by Avro to be an aerial photographer. (Makda Ghebreslassie/CBC)

One of those people was 83-year-old Jack Hurst, a photographer for the Arrow program who got the job at the age of 17.

"I was one of the kids there," he said.

"It was cancelled today and you were out today," he recalled about the day the government ordered the program shut down. "There was no going back, it was really tough."

Hurst eventually found work as a photographer for the Eaton's catalogue.

• Avro Arrow replica could take to the skies after decades of work

He plans on joining the search mission next week, and will likely pull out his camera a few times.

"I'm just so thrilled to be part of this program," he said. "I'm one of the few living people that worked there ... it's the greatest part of history in Canada and to have it revitalized, I just think is a wonderful thing."

 

 

[Gurn]

I often wonder what Canada would be like today, had the Arrow been built and put into service. Perhaps the day of cancellation was the day Canada's slow slide into 2nd tier nation began?

[SabreFan1]

10 minutes ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

I'd love for the program to be restarted and retrofitted to today's military needs, but knowing our neighbour to the south, they'll probably sic the ruskies on us to get us to behave and cancel the project again.

 

Given the advancements of materials and aerospace engineering over the last half a century, I don't doubt that we could build a superior model of fighter jet that would kick the ass of any other fighter jet that wanted to engage us in a dogfight.  :D

Woah there horsey.  A smaller better version of the Arrow would likely be one of the fastest jets on the planet, but there's no way that it would be able to take on an F-22 Raptor in air superiority.  There's a reason why the US gov't won't let any foreign nation buy an F-22 while at the same token, they're pimping out a stealth-nerfed F-35 to any country with 2 nickels to rub together.

[SabreFan1]

17 minutes ago, gurn said:

I often wonder what Canada would be like today, had the Arrow been built and put into service. Perhaps the day of cancellation was the day Canada's slow slide into 2nd tier nation began?

That's kinda harsh.  Lower tiered military for sure, but crapping on the whole country is a tad much.

[Gurn]

3 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

That's kinda harsh.  Lower tiered military for sure, but crapping on the whole country is a tad much.

I did not say 3rd world nation. Canada was a leading nation at the end of WW2 and has been sliding slowly backwards in stature for decades. Now we are a nation of followers and 'helpers' rather than doers, and leaders.

 Population growth or lack of growth, along with a laid back attitude can explain much of the decline.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, gurn said:

I did not say 3rd world nation. Canada was a leading nation at the end of WW2 and has been sliding slowly backwards in stature for decades. Now we are a nation of followers and 'helpers' rather than doers, and leaders.

 Population growth or lack of growth, along with a laid back attitude can explain much of the decline.

I know that you didn't mean 3rd world nation.  2nd tier nation is still a bit rough.  Canada still has it's strong points.  It's just that it's priorities took a huge turn when it became more of a pacifist nation.  Switzerland is pretty much the embodiment of a perpetually neutral pacifistic country with a weak military but I wouldn't call them a 2nd tier nation.

 

As much as I love to tease Canadians and by extension Canada, it's still a very pleasant country.  I think it should back off on allowing as many immigrants in as it does though because at some point in the future it will start to lose it's national identity.

[Mike Vanderhoek]

3 minutes ago, SabreFan1 said:

I know that you didn't mean 3rd world nation.  2nd tier nation is still a bit rough.  Canada still has it's strong points.  It's just that it's priorities took a huge turn when it became more of a pacifist nation.  Switzerland is pretty much the embodiment of a perpetually neutral pacifistic country with a weak military but I wouldn't call them a 2nd tier nation.

 

As much as I love to tease Canadians and by extension Canada, it's still a very pleasant country.  I think it should back off on allowing as many immigrants in as it does though because at some point in the future it will start to lose it's national identity.

This is what makes up our national identity, as much as many disagree with it.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, Mike Vanderhoek said:

This is what makes up our national identity, as much as many disagree with it.

My concern is that over the next 15-20 years, Canada's national identity has the potential to devolve rather than evolve.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Into what?  Devolve into diversity, instead of an anglo-saxon dominated society?  

It's not that simple.  Different does not always mean better.

[riffraff]

1 hour ago, gurn said:

I did not say 3rd world nation. Canada was a leading nation at the end of WW2 and has been sliding slowly backwards in stature for decades. Now we are a nation of followers and 'helpers' rather than doers, and leaders.

 Population growth or lack of growth, along with a laid back attitude can explain much of the decline.

As opposed to an oppressive war mongering 1% nation?

 

Interesting that the world wants to come here still.

 

 

 

I'm totally ok with this.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

And maintaining the status quo does not preclude devolution either.

I never said it did.  I'd just prefer that Canada be a bit more choosy as to who and how many immigrants that it let's in every year.  With a population of less than 40 Million, it wouldn't take longer than 15-20 years for it to devolve into a lesser (my opinion of lesser) society.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

So, in other words, Canada is already letting in what you consider to be undesirables at what is essentially an unsustainable rate to support the "Canadian dream".

 

I would contend that we're actually overly restrictive when it comes to choosing who to let into the country.  It doesn't help any that there are non-Indigenous people who grumble how the newcomers are nothing like themselves, as they fail to remember going back into their own ancestry that they themselves are immigrants to this land.  What made them and their ilk "more acceptable" than those who they complain about?

 

Anyways, I'll leave it at that, as this is already off on a tangent from the OP.

We definitely have opposing, near polar opposite, viewpoints on immigration.  I agree, we'll just end up hijacking the thread for no good reason if we continue.

[SabreFan1]

Just now, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Read my post carefully - I only said that we could, not that we will.  However, every problem eventually has a solution, and I believe that with time our best and brightest will eventually come up with a solution to the "air superiority" issue you mention, just perhaps not in the form of a resurrected and modernized Avro Arrow. 

 

And if it is with the Avro Arrow, even better.  

The problem is that if any Canadian is among the best, they are most likely already working in the defence industry at a highly paid job in the US.

[Gurn]

21 minutes ago, riffraff said:

As opposed to an oppressive war mongering 1% nation?

 

Interesting that the world wants to come here still.

 

 

 

I'm totally ok with this.

If the choice were between laid back, 2nd tier nation or an oppressive war mongering 1% nation, I'd always go with laid back 2nd tier; however I don't think it was a one or the other type of choice.

[Violator]

If we want a real technology sector we need to build stuff like the arrow again it said 30,000 people lost there jobs if even half of those jobs come back that would be good for the economy.

[SabreFan1]

30 minutes ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

So, we'll just entice them back with a better salary and a universal health care system.  

The better salary would boost the cost of the program because not only would you have to pay the Canadians the salary, you would also have to match that pay for the rest of the skilled foreign workers that you bring in.  If you're highly skilled enough in the US, you have excellent work provided insurance which gives you access to world class hospitals in the US.  Universal health care is good for society as a whole, not so much for enticing people who already have means.

[riffraff]

11 minutes ago, gurn said:

If the choice were between laid back, 2nd tier nation or an oppressive war mongering 1% nation, I'd always go with laid back 2nd tier; however I don't think it was a one or the other type of choice.

It doesn't seem like we can have it both ways.

[JoesRooster]

1 hour ago, SabreFan1 said:

My concern is that over the next 15-20 years, Canada's national identity has the potential to devolve rather than evolve.

This is a bad argument on your part, Canada is known as a melting pot of cultures. Without these differences it really wouldn't be Canada as U.S.A would not be U.S.A. The difference between the two countries is that America tends to neglect that aspect while Canada tends to fully embrace it. Slowing the rate of immigration within the country is not a bad idea just the context behind your thought is flawed. 

[SabreFan1]

Just now, JoesRooster said:

This is a bad argument on your part, Canada is known as a melting pot of cultures. Without these differences it really wouldn't be Canada as U.S.A would not be U.S.A. The difference between the two countries is that America tends to neglect that aspect while Canada tends to fully embrace it. Slowing the rate of immigration within the country is not a bad idea just the context behind your thought is flawed. 

Yours is an opinion based argument, it can't be proven with empirical evidence.  The US's melting pot days have long since passed.  This is a much different world than it was 100 years ago.

[SabreFan1]

1 minute ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Sure, and that's fine, as the skilled workers (foreign or otherwise) would likely provide economic benefits to Canada from the wages they earn.

 

Besides, as long as we have the clear foresight and political motivation to keep the project running, the benefits will ultimately outweigh the costs.  Diefenbonehead crippled our country when he cancelled the project, creating not only the brain-drain that this revived project could correct, but also by placing our air defence reliance upon the Americans - who we can't really trust any more, as suggested by our Minister of Foreign Affairs.

I'm all for Canada making it's own fifth-generation fighter aircraft.  There's no political will in Canada to spend the kind of money that it would take to get there.  In the long run, it would become a money maker and job creating industry, but in the short-term it would cost a lot of money to begin.  There's only so many tax raises that the Canadian public will accept.  After a while, the politicians would feel the wrath of the voting public and being the natural cowards that politicians are, they would either end up folding the program and end up buying foreign planes afterwards, going into heavier national debt, or scaling the program back which would then lose it the talent that it would need to build a superior jet in the first place.