Thread by @twitandrewking

Good evening, today is the 60th anniversary of the cancellation of the #AvroArrow.

Most know of this jet as an icon of Canadian aeronautical engineering, crushed dreams & a sad fate wrapped in conspiracy.

So tonight, prepare for a story about...

THE ARROW THAT GOT AWAY

After the Diefenbaker government cancelled the #AvroArrow program on Feb20 1959 all related materials, the prototype jets & all blueprints, were ordered destroyed. Yet in 2011, an Avro Arrow ejection seat was discovered in the hands of a private collector in the U.K...

The ejection seat has been confirmed to be from the AVRO Arrow program by Martin-Baker, the world's leading ejection seat manufacturer. A letter of authenticity by Martin-Baker
confirms it is an authentic Arrow seat.
The data plate states the incept date as Sept. 15, 1958.

Chris Wilson, the director of a British company that sells aircraft collectibles says there’s no question the seat comes from an Avro Arrow, "It's 100 per cent an Arrow seat. This is clearly a used, flown seat," he said. "It saw a 100-plus, maybe as many as a 1,000 flying hours.”

But how did a Canadian Arrow seat get to the UK? One customer told Wilson that as a teen he often watched planes land at an air base & remembered a strange incident in which a white, high delta wing aircraft with no national markings landing at the base in the early 1960s...

Also, a Canadian journalist June Callwood, who died in 2007, said that one Arrow escaped & wrote an article for Maclean's magazine saying she heard the distinctive sound of an Arrow flying over Toronto, the day after it was announced the jets were to be destroyed.

Air Marshall Wilfred Curtis, a WW1 ace who headed the #AvroArrow program said in a 1968 interview with the Toronto Star, that he refused to answer questions when asked if an Arrow had escaped...

One theory is that one Arrow did escape being cut up...through Hawker Siddeley, who owned Avro Canada...they smuggled enough parts out of the Malton Avro plant to assemble a Mk 2 in the UK. It flew secretly in the UK, which explains the ejection seat turning up.

Did an #AvroArrow escape the cutting torches to the UK, whether by its own own flight or in parts, remains a mystery.

Perhaps one day an arrow will hit the bullseye and the truth will be known...

(from info at ctvnews.ca/mobile/avro-ar… )