Avro Arrow Essay
Essay – Avro Arrow
Since the dawn of mankind, humans have always wanted to conquer the skies. After the Wright Brothers first flight, mankind has dreamed of bigger and better aircrafts. Shortly after World War ll a company named Avro Aircraft Limited was assigned the job by the Royal Canadian Air Force to build supersonic twin engine interceptor which could defend Canada against Soviet Bombers during the Cold War. With a plant in Milton, Ontario and 14 000 employees, Avro Aircraft Limited built and manufactured ones of the greatest planes in aviation history. The plane was a masterpiece; it flew at nearly mach 2 and had futuristic technologies which would match up to planes from today. The Avro Arrow program turned out to be a huge waste of the effort and money, as it was cancelled less than a year later. There can be many reasons why it was cancelled but the biggest was the immense pressure put on Diefenbaker by President Eisenhower and the United States Air Force. Other reasons could be because of its huge price tag, a new emerging era of anti-aircraft technologies, or the fact that it had many little flaws in its design. Terminating the Avro Arrow program was the right and smarter thing to do by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and his Conservative Government. The Avro Arrow was a Canadian marvel but came with a huge price tag. The program cost hundreds of millions of more than the estimated price. Originally the Royal Canadian Air Force wanted 40 aircrafts for an estimated $118 million but, the price tag for the interceptor rose from 2 million to 12, and at the same time demand for interceptors fell as the world entered the age of long-range missiles. When Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the program the price tag stood at $247 million for the aircraft and $132 million for the Iroquois engines. A total cost of $374 million for a bunch of scrap metal. Clearly the project wasn’t worth as much as they were spending. The company’s estimations were
Since the dawn of mankind, humans have always wanted to conquer the skies. After the Wright Brothers first flight, mankind has dreamed of bigger and better aircrafts. Shortly after World War ll a company named Avro Aircraft Limited was assigned the job by the Royal Canadian Air Force to build supersonic twin engine interceptor which could defend Canada against Soviet Bombers during the Cold War. With a plant in Milton, Ontario and 14 000 employees, Avro Aircraft Limited built and manufactured ones of the greatest planes in aviation history. The plane was a masterpiece; it flew at nearly mach 2 and had futuristic technologies which would match up to planes from today. The Avro Arrow program turned out to be a huge waste of the effort and money, as it was cancelled less than a year later. There can be many reasons why it was cancelled but the biggest was the immense pressure put on Diefenbaker by President Eisenhower and the United States Air Force. Other reasons could be because of its huge price tag, a new emerging era of anti-aircraft technologies, or the fact that it had many little flaws in its design. Terminating the Avro Arrow program was the right and smarter thing to do by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and his Conservative Government. The Avro Arrow was a Canadian marvel but came with a huge price tag. The program cost hundreds of millions of more than the estimated price. Originally the Royal Canadian Air Force wanted 40 aircrafts for an estimated $118 million but, the price tag for the interceptor rose from 2 million to 12, and at the same time demand for interceptors fell as the world entered the age of long-range missiles. When Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the program the price tag stood at $247 million for the aircraft and $132 million for the Iroquois engines. A total cost of $374 million for a bunch of scrap metal. Clearly the project wasn’t worth as much as they were spending. The company’s estimations were