ISTAT Jetrader - Summer 2020 - 43

in a grand ceremony. I remember the
pictures in the Toronto Star newspaper.
Just a month before, at age 18, hoping
to become a pilot, I had joined the
RCAF and had been sponsored to study
aeronautical engineering for four years
at the University of Toronto. During
summer breaks I would attend flight
school at the Moose Jaw airbase in
Saskatchewan. Afterwards I would be
required to serve full-time in the Air
Force for another three years.
While the Arrow might have
enjoyed a full, page-one spread in the
Star, Oct. 4 was also the date of the
world's first satellite launch, the Soviet
Union's "Sputnik," and there it was,
also on the first page. Soon, there
were cynics suggesting that Sputnik
would lead to intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs), and the Arrow
would be obsolete before it was ready
for service.

A few months after the rollout, on
March 25, 1958, the first Arrow took
to the air on its maiden flight. It was a
perfect take-off and an equally perfect
landing about 30 minutes later. It was
reported that 9,500 workers were
outside the plant to celebrate a glorious
day for Canada. And by September of
that year, the first few Arrows were
engaged in preliminary test flights to
gauge the stability, control, speed,
altitude and take-off-and-landing
performance. Some flights reached
Mach 2 and 60,000 feet even though
they had only the Pratt & Whitney
engines. With the Iroquois engines,
the later planes were expected to have
shorter runway requirements, climb
faster, and carry greater loads of fuel
and weapons.
But there was still the "Sputnik
Effect." Did Canada really need a
supersonic interceptor? Was the Arrow

doomed to obsolescence even before
entering into service? And with the
Arrow budget steadily rising, could
Canada really afford to build them?
With the Canadian economy being less
than one-tenth of that of the United
States, there were still the Canadian
Army and Navy who needed new
weapons, too. Wasn't the real threat
ICBMs? Did Canada even need an air
force? Then, there was a new election
and a new government that promised
to tighten spending, and, on top of that,
there were still the Arrow's fire-control
and missiles systems to be resolved.

The Arrow's
Fire-Control System
From the beginning of the program,
the reliability of the Arrow's fire-control
systems and missiles was uncertain.
Initially, it was expected to be the

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Jetrader

* SUMMER 2020 * 4 3

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ISTAT Jetrader - Summer 2020

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