Next month marks the 60th anniversary of the birth of one of aviation’s great “might-have-beens.” The start of development of an aircraft that became a source of national pride. The start of an aircraft that could have been a world-beater. I’m referring to Canada’s mighty Avro CF-105 Arrow fighter. But an even more recent anniversary looms on Monday: the 53rd anniversary of its death. Known as Black Friday by those in the Canadian aviation industry, February 20 is the day the Canadian government suddenly pulled the plug on the program. The airplane was already well into the flight-test phase.
The Arrow was conceived at a time when the biggest threat to North America was that of Soviet bombers swarming over the Polar cap to rain nuclear destruction across industrial centers in the U.S. and Canada. The fact that the vast expanse of Canada lay in their way led the Canadian government to issue a set of performance and design specifications calling for a supersonic, twin engine, all-weather, two-crew interceptor that could reach 50,000 feet and a speed of Mach 1.5 just five minutes from engine start. Canada examined current and planned aircraft from U.S. manufacturers, including the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, and determined none could meet the requirements. So the government awarded the contract for the aircraft to A.V. Roe (Avro) Canada, which had previously designed the Royal Canadian Air Force’s subsonic CF-100 Canuck. The company also committed its Orenda division to simultaneously produce the Arrow’s Iroquois engines, each producing more than 19,000 pounds of dry thrust or 26,000 pounds with afterburner.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
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