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you might want to read this. (itf taken from the facts page )Thirty years ago, the Canadian public was cheering the launch of an aircraft that made headlines around the world. Three years ago, one of Canada's foremost historians, Dr. Desmond Morton, principal of Erindale College, University of Toronto, described the Avro Arrow as "a fatally flawed weapon, on a par with those earlier monuments to our military-industrial blundering, the Ross rifle or the MacAdam shovel." In an article in the Toronto Star, he said: "Politicians, our professional scapegoats, took the blame for aborting a design whose irnperfections should have been obvious to a first-year engineering student."
In The Illustrated History of Canada, a text which most Canadian school-children will read, Professor Morton claims that then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro Arrow, not because guided missiles had made it obsolete, but because it was "a flawed plane and an inept corporation."
In A Military History of Canada, Dr. Morton refers to "crippling design flaws in a reputed triumph of Canadian engineering. The Arrow's Mach-2 speed depended on carrying its missiles in a belly pack. Opened for action at high speeds, the rocket pack acted like an air brake-or threatened to tear off."
The basis for Dr. Morton's claims of technological flaws are the presumed effects if the Arrow's weapons pack had been lowered during flight. Yet, as several engineers have since informed Dr. Morton, it was never designed to be lowered in flight, only on the ground. Engineer Paul Campagna comments: "The scenario of instability previously described (by Dr. Morton) in fact occurred on the CF-100, Mark IV prototype. The author seems to have gotten the two aircraft confused."
Were the engineers who designed the Arrow no better than Dr. Morton claims they were-or was he himself the victim of misinformation? And if he was misinformed, why? Like any journalist, Dr. Morton won't name his Ottawa sources, who, he says, "believed there was a lot more to the story than they were able to tell." He admits that he "was misled" about the design for the weapons pack, but contends that there were other problems which would still justify the description of the Arrow as "a magnificent airplane that had major flaws." He maintains that since the plane's weapons and avionics systems "were being bought off the American shelf" and had not been tested in flight, their incorporation would have caused major problems "that would have involved considerable redesign."
In this interview with Engineering Dimensions' editor Margaret McCaffery, Professor Morton explains why the story of the Arrow is itself flawed.
ED: Do you think you will change your account of the Avro Arrow in subsequent editions of your books?
Morton: I may reflect on this controversy. Particularly when you're dealing with contemporary history, you've got a very partial access to sources. You have people alive with very strong feelings and knowledge, which they may or may not share.
ED: Would it be fair to suggest that your sources wanted to see an opinion expressed that the cancellation of the arrow was the fault of the company and the engineering?
Morton: They may have, although that wasn't how I approached them. I simply wanted to know if there was more to this than defenders of the Arrow have said. The problem with the Arrow is that it has become another myth of absolute perfection. When the politicians came to make their decision about the Arrow, though they had a lot of faulty information, they also had some facts, some of which we know, some of which we don't know. When I look at the story of the Arrow, which was only a quarter of a century ago, there's a great deal that's hidden. I'm denied access to what went on in Cabinet, in the Prime Minister's Office, in the Department of National Defence. What I'd like to see come out of this, and what I suspect my sources would like, would be access legislation being used to open up all the records related to the Arrow, including the decision to destroy the prototypes.
Who precisely ordered the destruction of the existing prototypes and why? It was an act of extraordinary vandalism and vengefulness and no one has formally taken responsibility for it. I'm told there were American arguments that the aircraft was flawed-although that may be the same sour grapes attitude that you've suggested. I think it was a tragedy that the opportunity to perfect it was never achieved.
ED: Did you ever speak with Mr. Floyd, who was vice-president of engineering at Avro during this time?
Morton: No.
ED: What do you think his response would have been?
Morton: Oh I know what it is, because I've received a copy of the letter he and a group of engineers sent to the Toronto Star. That's one of the reasons why I wrote the Star article-to see what response I'd get, who was willing to talk. I've learned a great deal since then.
ED: It's been suggested that there's more on file in Washington about the Avro Arrow than there is in Ottawa. With the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, wouldn't it be easier to get information from Washington?
Morton: Yes, but I was led to believe that if I saw what was on file in Washington I would have an even more hostile view of the Arrow. Arguments were certainly put up for the U.S. not to buy it. It would be inherently improbable that they would try to suppress a good aircraft to produce an inferior one. They would be more likely to try and acquire the technology for themselves.
ED: In an ideal world, what kind of access to information would you want?
Morton: Our Access to Information Act is a very imperfect document; in fact, it's worse than no access legislation. At several points in the '70s, beginning with the first cabinet order on access and ending with the Access to Information and Privacy Act, researchers found themselves pushed out of information sources that they had been able to use before. While the government of the day could proclaim in glowing terms that they had opened the books, in each case they had not.
The downside of a freedom of information act is the fear that people will prune the records. As a historian, in contrast to journalists, I would rather have the record complete and postponed for 20 years, than have it destroyed and available tomorrow.