OTTAWA — Critics are throwing cold water on a Canadian company’s plan to resurrect the country’s aerospace industry with a modernized Avro Arrow jet.
“Is it feasible to think that a small Canadian upstart, in a decade’s time, will be able to compete with one of the largest aerospace manufacturers in the world in terms of information technologies and systems?” asked Philippe Lagasse, a University of Ottawa defence procurement expert.
His question comes one day after it was revealed that a consortium of Canadian business, engineering and design experts are lobbying the government to reach back more than half a century into history for a way out of its fighter jet problems.
The answer, they say, lies in Canada’s 1950s aviation marvel, the Avro Arrow.
The group’s ambitious six to eight year timeline for resurrecting and having the Avro Arrow in the military’s hands is simply not realistic given the state of Canada’s aerospace industry, says Lagasse, who has been a critic of the government’s fighter jet procurement process.
Although he doesn’t doubt the ability of Bourdeau Industries, the company behind the proposal, to deliver an airframe, he’s sceptical when it comes to what’s inside — the brains of the plane.
“How do you build a product that is as capable as what’s on the U.S. market, and not have it explode in cost? It’s the other components… weaponry, payload and information systems that will eventually hamper this Canadian effort,” said Lagasse.
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If it were simple to access the high-level computer technology needed to make an aircraft inter-operable with those the allies are flying, other countries would likely be doing the same, he said.
The Canadian group, backed by the celebrated infantry commander retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, says that an updated version of the CF-105 Avro Arrow would fly faster and more powerfully, and cost less than the U.S.-built F-35 stealth fighter jets the government was on track to purchase.
Even MacKenzie’s endorsement of the plan and criticism of the F-35s didn’t sway the Conservative government, which rejected the proposal in June, newly-released documents showed.
John Diefenbaker’s government abruptly cancelled the Avro Arrow project in 1959, after several prototypes were built and tests were conducted, but before the all-weather supersonic interceptor went into production.
Still, the Canadian group is convinced its plan can work and is asking, at the very least, that it be given a fair shot.
“At its time, the Avro Arrow was far ahead of its competitors. It is robust enough to allow us to bring it forward to today’s requirement,” said Allen Green, a member of the consortium who recently retired from his job as a vice-president at General Motors Canada, where he was in charge of operations and personnel.
Because some data survived the ordered destruction the original Arrow’s plans, Canadians would save a good portion of money traditionally spent in the development stages of a project, Green argued.
“You avoid all the costs that would normally be assigned to a brand new program,” he said. “And our approach, rather than put in place a company that would, from ground zero, design and build this, we want to use existing suppliers in Canada who we think are fully capable of delivering all the components necessary to the final assembly.”
Bourdeau Industries is looking for a one-year grant to perfect the design and present a manufacturing plan.
Green said that although he wasn’t surprised the government rejected the proposal, he was hoping it would receive a detailed analysis.
But the government isn’t budging.
“While we appreciate the sentimental value of the Avro Arrow, which was cancelled 53 years ago, analysts looked at the proposal and determined that this is not a realistic option,” a spokeswoman for Associate Minister of Defence Bernard Valcourt wrote in an email Monday.
“The proposal to develop, test and manufacture what would effectively be a brand new aircraft is risky, and would take too long and cost too much to meet Canada’s needs,” the email continued.
The exploding costs of buying into the F-35 program was part of what prompted the government to press the pause button on the purchase and bring in an accounting firm to help crunch the numbers.
So while the plans for the F-35s remain on hold, the official Opposition is asking that the government stop rejecting plans; without establishing the policy and national defence needs these jets would meet, it’s difficult to begin ruling out options, said NDP defence procurement critic Matthew Kellway.
“The issue is, we should have an open competition. That’s what we’ve been calling for for a long time,” he said in an interview. “If the proponents of the Avro Arrow think they’ve got a plane that can compete in an open competition, then let’s have the competition and see what comes of it.”
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