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Avro Aircraft Limited (Canada) was a Canadian Aircraft Manufacturing company, that was in business from 1945-62. The company was known for their innovative designs, including the famed Avro Arrow fighter. ORIGINS During the trainers, 430 Lancaster bombers, six Lancastrian , one Lincoln bomber and a single York transport. A.V. ROE CANADA In 1945 , the UK-based Hawker Siddeley Group purchased Victory Aircraft from the Canadian government, creating A.V. Roe Canada as its wholly owned Canadian subsidiary. Avro Canada, as it was commonly known, began operations in the former Victory plant. Avro Aircraft (Canada), their first (and, at the time, only) division, turned to the repair and servicing of a number of Second World War-era aircraft, including Sea Furies , B-25s and Lancasters. From the outset, the company invested in research and development and embarked on an ambitious design program with a jet engine and a jet-powered fighter and airliner on the drawing boards. FIRST PROJECTS The first major project was the Orenda jet engine in 1949 which had been developed from the earlier Chinook design of the Turbo Research Ltd. company that was included as part of the start-up Avro organization. Turbo Research was originally a small firm involved in research and cold-weather testing of jet engines for the RCAF, although the company had started work on a number of their own engine designs. When they were purchased by A.V. Roe, they were mid-way through their TR.4 design, which was renamed the Chinook. The company would eventually be renamed in honour of their later TR.5 design, becoming Orenda Engines . The Orenda engine from the Gas Turbine Division (later Orenda Engine Division), would be destined to power fighter aircraft for the RCAF from Avro and Canadair Aircraft Ltd. ( Canadair Sabre and Canadair T-33 ). ]] In 1946 , A.V. Roe Canada's next design, the Avro XC-100, Canada's first jet fighter, started at the end of the era of propeller-driven aircraft and the beginning of the jet age. Although the design of the large, jet-powered all-weather interceptor, renamed the CF-100 Canuck , was largely complete by the next year, the factory was not tooled for production until late 1948 due to ongoing repair and maintenance contracts. The CF-100 would have a long gestation period before finally entering RCAF service in 1952, initially with the Mk 2 and Mk 3 variants. The CF-100 Canuck operated under NORAD to protect airspace from Soviet threats such as nuclear-armed bombers. A small number of CF-100s served with the RCAF until 1981 in reconnaissance, training and electronic warfare (ECM) roles. In its lifetime, a total of 692 CF-100s of different variants, including 53 aircraft for the Belgian Air Force , were produced. .]] Work was also underway on a civilian inter-continental transport known as the . The Jetliner represented a new type of regional jet airliner that would not see comparable designs until the late 1950s. Despite an aggressive marketing campaign directed at US airlines and the USAF, the sales prospects of the Jetliner floundered after the launch customer, Trans-Canada Airlines , reneged on a letter of intent in 1948. The company was still attempting to get the CF-100 into production at the time and, consequently, the Canadian government cancelled any further work on the C102 project due to the Korean War priorities. Reacting to a direct order from the government, the second C102 prototype was demolished in the plant in 1951, with the first prototype relegated to photographic duties in the Flight Test Department. After a lengthy career as a camera platform and company "hack," ''CF-EJD-X'', the Jetliner prototype was broken up in 1956. The nose section now resides in the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa. EXPANSION AND COLLAPSE A.V. Roe Canada was restructured in the mid-1950s into two separate divisions: Avro Aircraft Ltd. and Orenda Engines, both facilities located across from each other in a complex at the perimeter of Malton Airport. The total labour force of both aviation companies reached 15,000 in 1958. During the same period, A.V. Roe Canada also purchased a number of companies, including Dominion Steel And Coal Corporation and Canada Car And Foundry (1957) and Canadian Steel Improvement. By 1958, A. V. Roe Canada was an industrial giant with over 50,000 employees in a far-flung empire of 44 companies involved in coal mining, steel making, railway rolling stock, aircraft and aero-engine manufacturing, as well as computers and electronics. The companies generated annual sales in the $450 million range, ranking A.V. Roe Canada as the third largest corporation in Canada. AVRO ARROW The need for a newer and much more powerful interceptor aircraft was clear even before the CF-100 entered service, and a number of design studies on swept-wing versions started as early as 1952. A switch to a more advanced swept wing was studied as the CF-103, and this led eventually (through a series of other designs) to the larger delta-wing CF-105 Arrow interceptor. The sudden cancellation of the Arrow project by the Canadian government on 20 February 1959 led to a massive corporate downsizing and an attempt to further diversify. Many Avro Aircraft Ltd. engineers who remained were reassigned to marine, truck and automobile projects while Orenda Engines continued as an engine manufacturer, albeit on a smaller scale. Numerous engineering and technical staff left Avro Canada primarily to the United Kingdom and the United States in a so-called "brain drain." EXPERIMENTAL PROJECTS In 1952, the Avro Special Projects team had started research and development work on a series of " Flying Saucer "-like vehicles. The only design that materialized was the VZ-9-AV Avrocar , funded entirely by the U.S. military from 1956. The Avrocar was proposed to the U.S. Army as a type of "Flying Jeep" that could also serve as a proof-of-concept test vehicle for a later supersonic flying saucer design, the Weapon System 606A for the USAF. Two Avrocars were built, one for wind-tunnel testing at NASA Ames and the other for flight testing. The designs were underpowered and only operated in a ground-cushion effect, much like a Hovercraft . When the Avrocar prototypes failed to perform at heights above three feet off the ground, the U.S. Army and USAF cancelled the project, in 1961. Both Avrocars remain on public display, one at the Western Canada Aviation Museum in Winnipeg, the other at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum, Ft. Eustis, Virginia. DEMISE In 1962, the Hawker Siddeley Group , formally dissolved A.V. Roe Canada and transferred all A.V. Roe Canada assets to its newly-formed subsidiary Hawker Siddeley Canada . Hawker Siddeley Canada, at that time, among its diverse holdings, included major manufacturing units:
The former Avro aircraft factory in Malton was sold to De Havilland Canada in the same year. This facility, located on the north end of Toronto Pearson International Airport , was later operated by Douglas Aircraft , McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing before being demolished in 2005 . Hawker Siddeley Canada has since dissolved after divesting itself of almost everything other than its pension fund by the late 1990s. Orenda Aerospace , as part of the Magellan Aerospace Corporation, is the only remaining original company from the A.V. Roe empire, although greatly diminished in both the size and scope of operations. AIRCRAFT REFERENCES
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