Canada's cancelled Mach 2 delta-wing dream. Designed to defend North American airspace against high-altitude Soviet bombers, its performance reportedly rivalled or exceeded contemporaries like the English Electric Lightning - before the entire program was abruptly cancelled, before it ever reached squadron service. Developed by Avro Aircraft Limited (Avro Canada).
Canada's cancelled Mach 2 delta-wing dream. Developed by Avro Aircraft Limited (Avro Canada).
Photo: Don Rogers, Public domainSee Specifications for full detail.
The Avro Arrow is a Canadian twin-engine, delta-wing supersonic interceptor built by Avro Canada for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It first flew in 1958, matching the performance of the world's most capable interceptors of the era.[1]
The programme was cancelled in February 1959, eleven months after first flight, in an announcement known as 'Black Friday'; the government subsequently ordered every flying aircraft, airframe, jig, drawing and film destroyed.[2] The decision remains one of the most disputed in Canadian industrial history.
The requirement was geography: Soviet bombers coming over the Pole would cross Canada first, and the RCAF wanted an interceptor to meet them - two crew, twin engines, Mach 2, huge combat radius, all-weather radar and missiles, operating from Arctic-adjacent bases. Nothing existing came close, so in 1953 Avro Canada was asked to build the impossible domestically.[1]
Avro's answer skipped prototypes entirely: the Cook-Craigie plan tooled for production from day one, betting that the design was right. The company also launched its own engine - Orenda's PS-13 Iroquois, among the most powerful turbojets of its era - to replace the interim American J75s in later aircraft.[1]
The Arrow was aggressively modern: a thin, high-mounted delta over a slab-sided fuselage with internal weapons bay bigger than a B-29's bomb bay, fly-by-wire flight controls with artificial feel (years ahead of general practice), 4,000 psi hydraulics, and design-by-computer stress analysis - engineering practices a decade early, in Malton, Ontario.[1]
Flight test backed the swagger: RL-201 flew on 25 March 1958, and the five J75-powered Arrows reached Mach 1.98 and 50,000+ feet while still in early envelope expansion - with the far more powerful Iroquois-engined Mk 2, expected to push well past Mach 2, sitting essentially complete when the axe fell.[2]
The Arrow's enemies were arithmetic and era. Costs had grown fivefold as Avro absorbed airframe, engine, missile and fire-control programs; export prospects died against American competition and politics; and the post-Sputnik consensus - briefly, catastrophically - held that missiles made manned interceptors obsolete. Canada was also joining NORAD and being offered American Bomarc missiles instead.[1]
On 20 February 1959 - 'Black Friday' - Prime Minister Diefenbaker cancelled the program outright. Avro fired 14,528 employees that afternoon over the intercom. Within months came the order that turned cancellation into legend: all five flying Arrows and 31 aircraft on the line were torched and guillotined, tooling smashed, blueprints burned. The stated reasons (security, avoiding a museum-piece reproach) have never satisfied anyone.[2]
The epilogue stung worst: within a few years Canada bought American Voodoo interceptors and nuclear-armed Bomarcs that never worked as promised - procuring, at length, roughly what it had destroyed.[1]
What survived survived by accident or stealth: a nose section and cockpit smuggled to what is now the Canada Aviation and Space Museum[3], outer wing panels, an Iroquois engine, and - recovered from Lake Ontario decades later - free-flight test models fired over the water in the 1950s. Full-scale replicas built by volunteers keep the shape physically present in Canadian museums.[2]
Performance claims, cost trajectories and cancellation motives remain disputed today because so many programme records were destroyed.[1]
The Arrow's cancellation ended Canada's run as a designer of front-line combat aircraft. Chief aerodynamicist Jim Chamberlin led 25 Avro engineers to NASA's Space Task Group, a group that grew to 32 and supplied lead engineers and programme managers to Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - Tecwyn Roberts became NASA's first flight dynamics officer and Owen Maynard ran the Lunar Module engineering office.[4] Whether the decision was fiscal prudence or a historic mistake is still argued over in books, films and Parliament.[2]
The Arrow has appeared on Canadian postage stamps, in a 1997 CBC mini-series, and in museum displays nationwide, and remains one of the most widely recognised aircraft shapes in Canadian history.[1]
Not applicable - no Arrow airframe survives intact and none ever entered service, so the type cannot appear on Flightradar24 or any live tracker. A flying full-scale replica project has been discussed publicly in Canada but has not been completed or flown as of this writing.
| Performance | |
| Max Speed | 1,136 kn (1,307 mph / 2,104 km/h) |
|---|---|
| Cruise SpeedCruise Speed — The economical speed an aircraft sustains for the bulk of a flight - lower than maximum speed, chosen for the best balance of time and fuel burn. Glossary → | 606 mph at 36,000 ft |
| RangeRange — How far an aircraft can fly without refuelling. Quoted figures vary with payload, speed and reserves - see also ferry range and combat radius. Glossary → | 300 mi combat radius |
| Service CeilingService Ceiling — The highest altitude at which an aircraft can still climb at a useful rate (typically 100 ft/min). Above it, the air is too thin to keep climbing meaningfully. Glossary → | 53,000 ft |
| Airframe & Weight | |
| Wingspan | 50 ft |
| Length | 77 ft 9 in |
| Height | 21 ft 2 in |
| WeightMTOW — Maximum Take-Off Weight - the heaviest an aircraft is certified to be at the start of its take-off run, including fuel, crew, payload and the aircraft itself. Glossary → | empty: 49,040 lb; gross: 56,920 lb; MTOW: 68,605 lb |
| Power & Payload | |
| Engines | 2 x Pratt & Whitney J75-P-3 turbojets (23,500 lbf with afterburner each) in the Mk 1 test aircraft; production Mk 2 was to use 2 x Orenda Iroquois turbojets (~30,000 lbf each) |
| ArmamentArmament — The weapons an aircraft can carry: guns, missiles, bombs and rockets, whether mounted internally, on wing hardpoints, or in bomb bays. Glossary → | Internal weapons bay planned for 2 x AIR-2A Genie unguided nuclear air-to-air rockets, or up to 8 x AIM-4 Falcon or 3 x AIM-7 Sparrow II guided missiles, controlled by the Astra fire-control system - never operationally fitted before cancellation |
| Crew | 2 (pilot + navigator/weapons systems operator) |
| CapacityPayload — Everything an aircraft is carrying that isn't the aircraft or its fuel: passengers, cargo, or weapons. Payload and fuel usually trade off against each other. Glossary → | N/A (dedicated interceptor, no cargo/passenger capacity) |
| Program & Service | |
| Manufacturer | Avro Aircraft Limited (Avro Canada) |
| Origin | Canada |
| First Flight | March 25th 1958 |
| Retired | February 20th 1959 |
| Number Built | 5 |
| Unit Cost | ~$12.5M (1959 CAD, roughly at parity with USD at the time; program-amortized cost - never achieved planned production economies) - roughly $144M in 2026 dollars, adjusted for CPI inflation |
2 notable events involving the CF-105 Arrow, 1958 to 1958. Curated rather than exhaustive.
During a landing, a fault in the landing gear's retraction chain caused a runway excursion and gear collapse. The aircraft was repaired and returned to flight testing.
A flight-control fault inadvertently commanded the elevons fully down during landing, reducing tyre friction and causing brake lockup and gear collapse.
| Arrow Mk 1 | Initial test aircraft powered by imported Pratt & Whitney J75 turbojets pending the Iroquois engine's readiness; five built and flown before cancellation. |
| Arrow Mk 2 | Intended production standard with domestically-developed Orenda Iroquois engines and full Astra/Sparrow weapons fit; first airframe (RL-206) was on the ramp for taxi trials when the program was cancelled. |
| Arrow 2 (proposed reconnaissance/strike studies) | Paper studies for reconnaissance and strike derivatives explored by Avro but never funded. |
Source: MPulse Mississauga
Numbered as cited in the Overview article. Click a reference to see where it's used.
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