India Four Two

Avro Arrow blueprints were saved by a draftsman in 1959 when John Diefenbaker, the Canadian Prime Minister, cancelled the project and ordered all the airframes scrapped and everything associated with the project to be destroyed.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...oyed-1.5416554


Ironically they are on display at the University of Saskatchewan's Diefenbaker Canada Centre. I would have thought the owner (the draftsman's son) could have found somewhere more appropriate to display them!

Asturias56

A brilliant aircraft by all accounts - sadly one of the first to prove that even rich countries couldn't afford to stay in the advanced military aircraft development game by the late 50's early 60's

India Four Two

The fallout from Diefenbaker's decision was that many Canadian engineers migrated south and ended up involved in the US space program.

SpringHeeledJack

Without getting all conspiratorial in one's thinking, but with various 'programmes' coming to light by our good friends in Virginia from back in the day, perhaps certain things happened to that very aim, i.e brilliant engineers migrated from both Canada and the UK to become involved (for remuneration) in the US aircraft and space programmes ?

Asturias56

No - Dief took aim at the Arrow so he could get reelected - .... it was a bit like Wilson & TSR2 - a very large defence programme at a time when people had started to forget about WW2 and wanted to spend the money on social programmes................... or tax cuts.......................