Avro Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fate | divested |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1945 |
| Defunct | 1962 |
| Location | Toronto, Canada |
Avro Aircraft Limited (Canada) was a Canadian aircraft manufacturing company, operating from 1945- 1962. The company was known for their innovative designs, including the famed Avro Arrow fighter.
Contents |
[edit] Origins
During the Second World War, Victory Aircraft in Malton (then embedded in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga) was Canada's largest wartime aircraft manufacturer. Prior to the Second World War, as National Steel Car Ltd. of Montreal, the concern had been one of a number of shadow factories set up in Canada to produce British designs in safety. National Steel Car had turned out Avro Anson trainers, Handley Page Hampden bombers, Hawker Hurricane fighters and Westland Lysander army cooperation aircraft. The Victory Aircraft Limited was formed in 1942 when the Canadian government took over ownership and management of main plant of the National Steel Car Corporation at Malton, Ontario (near today's Toronto Pearson International Airport).During the Second World War, Victory Aircraft built Avro (UK) aircraft: 3,197 Anson trainers, 430 Lancaster bombers, 6 Lancastrian, 1 Lincoln bomber and a single York transport.
[edit] A.V. Roe Canada
A.V. Roe Canada was purchased from the Canadian government in 1945 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK-based Hawker-Siddeley Group. Avro Aircraft (Canada), their first (and, at the time, only) division, started operations in the former Victory plants. With wartime production ended, Avro Canada, as it was commonly known, turned to the repair and servicing of a number of WWII-era aircraft, including Sea Furies, B-25s and (of course) Lancasters. However, the company embarked on an ambitious design program with a jet engine and a jet-powered fighter and airliner on the drawing boards.
[edit] First projects
In 1946, A.V. Roe Canada's next landmark design, the Avro XC-100,started at the end of the era of propeller-driven aircraft and the beginning of the jet age. Although the design of the large, jet-powered all-weather interceptor, renamed the CF-100 Canuck, was largely complete by the next year, the factory was not tooled up until late in 1948 due to the ongoing repair work. The CF-100 would have a long gestation period before finally entering RCAF service in 1952, initially with the Mk 2 and Mk 3 variants. The CF-100 Canuck operated under the U.S./Canadian NORAD to protect the airspace from Soviet intruders such as nuclear-armed bombers. A small number of The Canuck served with the RCAF until 1981 in reconnaissance, training, and Electronic Warfare roles. In its lifetime, a total of 692 CF-100s of different variants (including 53 aircraft serving with the Belgium Air Force), were produced with a small numbers serving in he ECM (Electronic Counter Measures) role until 1981.
Work was also underway on a civilian inter-continental transport known as the Avro C102 Jetliner. It nearly became the first jet transport in the world when it first flew in August 1949, losing to the De Havilland Comet by a mere 13 days. However, the company was still attempting to get the CF-100 into production at the time, and the government eventually forbade any further work on the project as the Cold War heated up with the Korean War. Despite an aggressive marketing campaign directed at U.S. airlines and the USAF, the sales prospects of the Jetliner floundered after the launch customer, Trans-Canada Airlines Trans-Canada Airlines, reneged on a letter of intent in 1948. Reacting to a direct order from the government, the second C102 prototype was demolished in the plant in 1951 with the first prototype relegated to photographic duties in the Flight Test Department. After a lengthy career as a camera platform and company "hack," CF-EJD-X, the Jetliner prototype was broken up in 1956. The nose section now resides in the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa.[edit] Expansion and collapse
During the 1950s, A.V. Roe Canada also held a number of other large divisions, include Canadian Car & Foundry (1957) and Canadian Steel Improvement. In 1958, A. V. Roe Canada was an industrial "giant" with over 50,000 employees in a far-flung empire of 44 companies involved in coal, steel, railway and rolling stock, aircraft and aeroengine manufacture- even computers and electronics. The companies generated annual sales in the $450 million range, ranking A.V. Roe Canada as the third largest corporation in Canada.
Need for a newer and much more powerful interceptor was clear even before the CF-100 entered service, and a number of design studies on swept-wing versions started as early as 1952. A switch to the even more "modern" swept wing was studied as the CF-103, and this led eventually (through a series of other designs) to the larger delta-wing CF-105 Avro Arrow interceptor. The sudden cancellation of the Arrow in 1959 led to a massive downsizing and an attempt to diversify; Avro engineers who remained, worked on marine, truck and automobile projects.{{Infobox Aircraft
[edit] Experimental projects
Image:Avrocar.gif In 1952, the Avro Special Projects team also had started research and development work on a series of "flying saucer"-like vehicles. The only design that materialized was the VZ-9-AV Avrocar, funded entirely by the U.S. military from 1956. The Avrocar was proposed to the U.S. Army as a type of "Flying Jeep" that could also serve as a proof-of-concept test vehicle for a later supersonic flying saucer design, the Weapon System 606A for the USAF. Two Avrocars were built, one for wind-tunnel testing at NASA Ames and the other for flight testing. The designs were underpowered and only operated in a ground-cushion effect, much like a hovercraft. When the Avrocar prototypes failed to perform at heights above three feet off the ground, the U.S. Army and USAF cancelled the project, in 1961.
[edit] Demise
In 1962, Hawker-Siddeley, formerly dissolved A.V. Roe Canada and transferred the remaining aircraft manufacturing and engine plants to the newly-formed Hawker-Siddeley Canada company. The former Avro plant was sold to de Havilland Canada in the same year. The former Avro factory (located on the north end of Toronto Pearson International Airport) was later operated by Douglas Aircraft, McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing before being demolished in 2005. Hawker-Siddeley Canada has since dissolved after divesting itself of almost everything other than the pension fund by the late 1990s.
Orenda Aerospace, as part of the Magellan Aerospace Corporation, is the only remaining original company from the A.V. Roe empire, although greatly diminished in size and scope of operations.
[edit] Aircraft
| Aircraft | Description | Capacity | Launch date | 1st flight; | 1st delivery | Production |
| Avro Lancaster | 4 engined bomber | crew of 7 plus bombload | 1943 | 1945? | Victory aircraft | 430 built by Victory |
| Avro Lincoln | 4 engined bomber | crew of 6 plus bombload | 1944 | 1945 | 1 built by Victory Aircraft | |
| Avro Anson | utility aircraft | crew of 3-4 | 1935 | 1936 | 3197 built by Victory Aircraft | |
| Avro York | passenger and freight transport | crew of 5 | 1942 | 1 built by Victory Aircraft | ||
| Avro CF-100 | fighter interceptor | crew of 2 | 1940s | 1950 | 1952 | 692 |
| Avro C102 Jetliner | prototype medium-range jet airliner | 36 | 1949 | 1949 | never entered production | 1 prototype (2nd prototype- broken up) |
| Avro Arrow CF-105 | delta-wing interceptor aircraft | 2 | 1950s | 1958 | never in production | 5 Mk 1 (prototypes) flown, (29 Mk 2 airframes in production) |
| Avrocar VZ-9-AV | test aircraft | 2 | 1950s | 1959 | never in production | 2 prototypes test flown, (1st prototype only flown on tether) |
[edit] External links
- The history and related information re the Arrow, the Avrocar, and the Avro Jetliner
- A site dedicated to the people and projects of Avro Canada and Orenda Engines Limited (AvroLand)
[edit] Additional Reading
- Campagna, Palmiro. Storms of Controversy: The Secret AVRO Arrow Files Revealed. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992.
- Campagna, Palmiro. Requiem for a Giant: A.V.Roe Canada and the Avro Arrow. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2003.
- Dow, James. The Arrow. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, Publishers, 1979.
- Gainor, Chris. Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and the Space Race. Apogee, 2001.
- Page, Ron, Organ, Richard, Watson, Don and Wilkinson, Les. Avro Arrow: The Story of the Avro Arrow from its Evolution to its Extinction. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1979, reprinted Stoddart, 2004.
- Peden, Murray. Fall of an Arrow. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 1987.
- Shaw, E.K. There Never was an Arrow. Toronto: Steel Rail Educational Publishing, 1979.
- Stewart, Greig. Arrow Through the Heart: The Life and Times of Crawford Gordon and the Avro Arrow. Toronto: McGraw-Hill-Ryerson, 1998.
- Stewart, Greig. Shutting Down the National Dream: A.V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow. Toronto: McGraw-Hill-Ryerson, 1991.
- Whitcomb, Randall. Avro Aircraft and Cold War Aviation. St. Catharine's, Ontario: Vanwell, 2002.
- Zuk, Bill. The Avro Arrow Story: The Revolutionary Airplane and its Courageous Test Pilots, Calgary: Altitude Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-55153-978-0.
- Zuk, Bill. Avrocar: Canada's Flying Saucer... . Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 2001, ISBN 1-55046-359-4.
- Zuk, Bill. Janusz Zurakowski: Legends in the Sky, St. Catharine's, Ontario: Vanwell, 2004, ISBN 1-55125-083-7.
- Zuuring, Peter. Arrow Countdown. Kingston, Ontario: Arrow Alliance Press, 2001.
- Zuuring, Peter. Arrow First Flight. Kingston, Ontario: Arrow Alliance Press, 2002.
- Zuuring, Peter. Arrow Rollout. Kingston, Ontario: Arrow Alliance Press, 2002.
- Zuuring, Peter. The Arrow Scrapbook. Kingston, Ontario: Arrow Alliance Press, 1999.
- Zuuring, Peter. Iroquois Rollout. Kingston, Ontario: Arrow Alliance Press, 2002.de:Avro Canada
