Never have so many been mislead by so few for so long. [gee that sounds familiar for some reason.]
Greetings from western Canada.
It is not surprising that the guilty would destroy all evidence of a crime. In the case of the Arrow that did not include John Diefenbaker or his party.
All he did was inherit a failed aircraft program that had cost $308 million CDN for six aircraft, some of which were incomplete.
The Arrow was supposed to be a Mach 2+ interceptor that could pull 2G turns at 50,000 feet wouthout loss of speed or altitude. What was delivered after five years could not exceed Mach 2 and was unable to meet the turn specification.
The first problem is obviously due to its tailess-delta configuration. Without canards it is unlikely to turn well. The second obvious problem is the lack of a wasp-waist as seen on most other Mach 2+ aircraft. This should have increased drag and would have limited speed and endurance.
There is also an obvious problem with the landing gear:
Look at how the centreline of the wheels is offset from the centre of the lower cylinder. Braking should cause a torque that will rotate the wheel assemblies outward and cause the gear to splay outwards. The gear folded inwards and this should cause problems when landing the aircraft. The Arrow did crash at least once when the gear collapsed.
Avro Arrow gear
The aircraft and all related materials was ordered destroyed by Air Marshal Hugh Campbell to avoid "susequent ebarassment". This did not involve Diefenbaker or anyone else in his party.
The PM's choice was to cancel the program or proceed with purchasing an underperforming aircraft at over $12 million per unit. [that would by about 8 F-101 at $1.5M each or 6 F-104's at $2M. Don't know how many F-110s but it would have been several.]
Diefenbaker did the best thing for the Canadian taxpayer and I do not like you folks in the US saying bad things about him for it. How would you like it if I said Lincoln's mother wore army boots, Eh?
Anyway the Avro's cockpit is exactly the same shape as my cat's head. He bites and so did the Arrow.