Avro Arrow models search.

[ZR]

Sixty years after nine Avro Arrow free flight models went missing in Lake Ontario, a high-tech, all-Canadian search is under way for their recovery.
The Arrow Recovery Project, funded by private sponsors and corporate funding with start up costs between $500,000 and $1,000,000, was announced Friday by John Burzynski, the president and CEO of Osisko Mining Inc. and head of OEX Recovery Group Inc., which is leading the expedition.
“It’s a fascinating topic, it’s fascinating subject matter,” said Burzynkski, a geologist dressed in an olive green flightsuit, like many others, in a packed room at the Royal Canadian Military Institute.
The Avro Arrow models, one-eighth the size of the jet at about three metres long with a two metre wingspan, were launched with booster rockets between 1955-57 from Point Petre in Prince Edward County, east of Toronto, to test the flight design before the CF-105 Arrow was produced.
When the Canadian jet fighter program was abruptly cancelled in 1959, over 30,000 people lost their jobs and all Avro Arrow-related material was ordered destroyed, including six completed jet fighters.
All that remains are the free flight test models at the bottom of Lake Ontario.
“It goes to the heart of the Canadian soul in terms of what happened to the program,” said Burzynski to those gathered. “There were so many people involved with it.”
There have been previous privately funded missions, but the driving forces behind this expedition think they will be successful.
“We think they’re much closer to shore than previous searches have ever thought,” said Burzynski. “They were searching kilometres and kilometres out in the lake. We think they’re within sort of a three to four kilometre radius.”
Burzynkski said the recovery effort has been in the works for the last year-and-a-half and once the expedition got an exclusive permit to carry out “marine archaeological fieldwork” from Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport, it was game time.
The first order of business starting next week will be to map out 64-square-kilometres of lake floor from where the original models were launched.
That should take between two weeks to a month and then they’ll investigate any promising sites before sending divers down for a closer look.
“We’re going to be reviewing all this sonar imagery, we’re also going to be enlisting the archaeologists as well to say, ‘Hey does this look like a plane? Does this look like a booster rocket?’” said David Shea, the vice-president of engineering for Kracken Sonar Inc., who will use their high-definition, military-grade sonar for the recovery effort.
A documentary crew is also filming the entire expedition.
Both Burzynkski and Shea are optimistic they will find the flight models in whatever shape they are in given it has been 60 years.
The ultimate goal is to house them at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa and the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton.

[ZR]

For six years, taxpayers dreamed of our military getting what some still believe was a top made-in-Canada fighter plane.
Others consider the cancelled Arrow project a costly nightmare.
A.V. Roe Canada Ltd. developed the delta-wing aircraft at present-day Pearson International Airport.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent gave the green light in 1953 to equip the Royal Canadian Air Force with interceptors capable of challenging invading Soviet bombers.
Five Arrows were ordered in 1955 and the $27-million budget soared to $260 million.
The first one was shown publicly on Oct. 4, 1957. On March 25, 1958, chief pilot Janusz Zurakowski took RL-201 on its inaugural flight.
“The CF-105 Arrow was a technical masterpiece at the forefront of aviation engineering,” the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa notes.
Officials in the capital, however, came to believe the Soviet bomber threat “was diminishing and air defence could be better handled by unmanned Bomarc missiles.”
Theories persist about American power-brokers pressuring the feds.
On “Black Friday” — Feb. 20, 1959 — then-Progressive Conservative prime
minister John Diefenbaker announced the dream’s demise.
Everything was ordered scrapped, including turbo-jet engines designed by a Malton firm but never reportedly fitted onto an Arrow.
More than 14,000 jobs were eliminated, but many of Avro’s soon-recruited aerospace engineers helped the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its U.S. contractors launch astronauts into space.
At the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, the nose and cockpit of a nearly-completed RL-206 is the largest-known Arrow relic.
Avro folded in 1962, 10 years before Canada retired its imported Bomarcs.
New Canadian- and U.S.-built fighters each cost about the same, or much more, than an Arrow.

[ZR]

[RedSN]

from Point Petre in Prince Edward County

I was interested in this story before, but even more interested since buying a cottage 10 km from Point Petre this summer. Another interesting site right next to the test launch site is the Oranda Ring where they used to test the engines.

https://ottawarewind.com/2013/12/29/the-ring-of-orenda/

[ZR]

OMG that is cool.

[Stephen06GT]

I really hope they find one of them.

[Rino]

were they wood,fiberglass or metalic?

[ZR]

Canadian govt could not have fudged this entire thing up any harder except if perhaps Kathleen was there to help em.

[Stephen06GT]

Canadian govt could not have fudged this entire thing up any harder except if perhaps Kathleen was there to help em.

Unfortunately we will probably never know the truth behind this story. I typed this as I wear my Avro Arrow limited watch.

[Hutch]

Canadian govt could not have fudged this entire thing up any harder except if perhaps Kathleen was there to help em.

Lol!!!!