Avro Arrow Is On A Roll, Again

Though this CF-105 will never fly, it looks astonishingly fast. Nimble. Real. For Peter Allnutt, 73, seeing the freshly painted craft make that graceful roll was truly a déjà vu moment. Though he's spent much of the past five years working with other volunteers on this museum-quality replica, his connection with the Arrow goes back a half-century. The former experimental flight mechanic for Avro Aircraft was there when the very first Arrow rolled out the hangar doors in October 1957. And he's never forgotten. "It was impressive — it was mind-blowing, actually, at the time," he said. "Back then, there was nothing like it in the world." And there wasn't. On the day of that rollout, the Star quoted Avro president Fred Smye describing the jet as "the most advanced aircraft this side of the iron curtain." It wasn't hyperbole. The interceptor was capable of flying at twice the speed of sound. New Iroquois jet engines were being developed and tested by a sister company to power future Arrows on a crucial Cold War mission: to defend North America from possible attack by Russian bombers delivering nuclear weapons over a North Pole route. In all, five Arrows were produced. And the 15,000 Avro employees had every reason to be proud of their jet and to plan for their futures. http://tinyurl.com/qlewz [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on September 29, 2006]

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