From Lift Off to Legendary: The Lore Behind the Avro Arrow

Photo: AVRO Arrow - RL 201 Source: Library and Archives Canada/John D. Harbron fonds/a210520

Remembering a Made-in-Canada Aeronautic Marvel

But first, a brief background on the Arrow:

In 1953, A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. (colloquially known as “Avro”) was commissioned to develop a supersonic interceptor that would bolster North America's air defences during the Cold War. Production began at the company's facilities in Malton, Ontario and on October 4, 1957, the first Arrow was unveiled. After a successful first flight, four more prototypes were completed, plus one Arrow Mk. 2 that was nearing completion.

The twin-engine, delta-winged Arrow was hailed as a technological triumph. It was the first production aircraft to adopt a fly-by-wire flight control system and could fly at a speed exceeding Mach 2—twice the speed of sound—all at an impressive altitude. It quickly became one of Canada’s great technological achievements.

Despite the optimism surrounding the aircraft, on February 20, 1959, the government cancelled the project. The cancellation was due to mounting costs and the threat of missile attacks, as missiles were the primary threat of the future—not manned bombers which the Arrow was developed to defend against. All CF-105 Arrow prototypes, models, plans, and equipment were to be destroyed.

Lake Ontario Lore

Today, some surviving Arrow artifacts can still be found in Canadian museums and government institutions (including memorabilia, photographs, blueprints, newsletters, memos, reports, and models), but what of the rest of it?

Some think the Arrows were deliberately sunk in Lake Ontario. It’s a speculation partly rooted in reality: During the aircraft’s development stage between 1954 and 1957, the assessment of the design’s flight ability involved wind-tunnel testing and experiments using scale models. Nine small-scale models—each 1/8 the size of a fully functional jet—were launched on rockets for aerodynamic tests over Lake Ontario from Point Petre in Prince Edward County, and eventually slipped beneath the surface. There is no evidence that any of the five completed prototype Arrows are sitting on the bottom of the lake.

Photo: An early underwater photograph of the Delta Test Vehicle. Credit: OEX Recovery Group

Canadian Aviation History, Resurfaced

Since the late ‘90s, several expeditions were initiated to recover pieces of Arrow history from Lake Ontario. Until recently, all were unsuccessful. That all changed with Raise the Arrow—a project “to search for the Avro Arrow free flight test models in Lake Ontario.” With the help of the Royal Canadian Air Force, the team was able to narrow down a 100 square kilometre section of lakebed to scour with an autonomous submarine equipped with sonar imaging technology.

Finally, after four years of searching, Raise the Arrow made a discovery in 2017: they found an Avro “Delta Test Vehicle” that pre-dates the Arrow scale models. It was successfully recovered in 2018 and is now on display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa.

Since then, the team behind the project has located four of the nine small-scale Arrow models—all of which will eventually be restored and displayed at both the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (also home to the largest surviving Arrow component: a nose cone section) and the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario.  

The Royal Canadian Air Force roundel used courtesy of the Department of National Defence.