Canada question

Dave Smith wrote:
Jim Battista wrote:


I'm too lazy to go find cites, but as an aviation buff:

IIRC, the US actually offered to buy Arrows and give them back to
Canada. The goal would have been to keep the Arrow team together --
collective skill-sets are easily lost and hard to regain, and having
a good design team in a friendly country next door never hurts.

They did??? They were not even interested in the Orenda engines. The
Arrow was a threat to the American aircraft industry and pressure was
put on the government to get rid of the Arrow and to take obsolete
American interceptors and the BOMARC missile system, much to the
financial gain of the US.


Here's just one source for that:

http://www.aircraftplanesandjets.com...avro_arrow.htm

"Recently released documents show the opposite, in fact. It is reported that
the U.S. Government of the day, although not willing to buy any Arrows
themselves, had offered to purchase some and then give them back to the RCAF
(Royal Canadian Air Force.) There is no doubt that the Canadian politicians of
the day found this politically unacceptable. I wonder in retrospect, why from
a purely financial view, this was not done."


Oh, what the hell, here's another of thousands:

http://www.vectorsite.net/avarrow.html

"However, the Americans had also been supportive of the Arrow program in many
ways, and in fact at the eleventh hour had offered to donate the
weapons-control system to the program and even fund the purchase of some
Arrows for the RCAF. This suggests that there was no particular American
policy on the Arrow, with some defense factions taking actions hostile to it
and others taking actions favorable to it while in pursuit of their own
agendas."


And on and on and on. I guess the poster who mentioned the 'buy and give back
offer' was right on the money.

If all this Canadian vituperation serves Canadian Identity, even at the
expense of the US, it's nothing new.

It's also quite harmless. Nex

Dave Smith wrote in
:

Jim Battista wrote:


I'm too lazy to go find cites, but as an aviation buff:

IIRC, the US actually offered to buy Arrows and give them back to
Canada. The goal would have been to keep the Arrow team together --
collective skill-sets are easily lost and hard to regain, and having
a good design team in a friendly country next door never hurts.

They did??? They were not even interested in the Orenda engines.

If you believe the wikipedia article on it, they did.

Designing high-performance military aircraft is *hard*, and some of the
knowledge that makes it work isn't in any one head but in the
collective team. Break up the team and you break the learning cycles
for new designers, and you lose some ability to do the design work.

The Arrow was a threat to the American aircraft industry

I can't see how it was really a threat. If you go and look up its
performance envelope, it was a mach 2.5, 60,000+ foot ceiling dedicated
interceptor in 1959. It was built to do one thing: take off, go like
a bat out of hell straight north, and shoot down undefended bombers.
This is a job that will shortly be done much more cheaply with SAMs, as
the Soviets will show when they take down Gary Powers at very high
altitude.

Its performance is better, but doesn't seem markedly better, than that
of the F-106, in service as the Arrow was testing. The F-106 was a
mach 2, 50,000 foot ceiling dedicated interceptor.

The McDonnell F-4, which was test-flying at the same time as the Arrow,
was a mach 2.5, 60,000+ foot multirole fighter in 1961 that, in
addition to interception, could do bomber escort, often escorting more
F-4's -- it carried a greater bombload than any WW2 bomber except the
B-29.

It would have been a nice airplane, to be sure, but it did a job that
was on its way out, and arguably-better, or at least as-good-but-more-
versatile, planes were in development at the same time anyway.

--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

Alan Pollock wrote:"

"However, the Americans had also been supportive of the Arrow program in many
ways, and in fact at the eleventh hour had offered to donate the
weapons-control system to the program and even fund the purchase of some
Arrows for the RCAF. This suggests that there was no particular American
policy on the Arrow, with some defense factions taking actions hostile to it
and others taking actions favorable to it while in pursuit of their own
agendas."

Donate? I have read a number of books on the Avro Arrow. I realize that there was
a problem with the weapons system, but this is the first that I ever heard of an
offer to donate the system. Perhaps the author used this term instead of a more
appropriate one, like an offer to licence or to buy.


And on and on and on. I guess the poster who mentioned the 'buy and give back
offer' was right on the money.

There had indeed been support from the US Air Force. They had offered free use of
testing facilities and aircraft. There had been an offer earlier in the program
to purchase a number of the aircraft in order to help reduce the cost per unit of
production. That offer was withdrawn. It was likely in reaction to the PM's
intention to reduce imports from the US and to look elsewhere for trade.

I do not blame the US for our Prime Minister's bungling in this project.

In , TheNewsGuy(Mike)
wrote:

[snip]

More flags on private homes as well as municipal property. I think
it is a reaction to all the American flags flying after 9-11. It
is not so much an increase in Canadian "pride" as it is an increase
in wanting to set our identity as different from American. Don't
take that the wrong way. It is not "anti-American". It is just
a desire to say we ARE different. Anyway - that is my take on it.

I disagree. I think Canadians are now definining their pride based on the
very clear and distinct differences between Canadian and American values
that we see of late. For example, the decision to avoid going to war in
Iraq (for which I believe we have been proven to have been correct) and the
ruling of the Supreme Court (and subsequent proposals by the feds to change
the laws) related to Gay Marriage really mean that our values are very
different.

Canadians are becoming more and more aware of the differences -- in fact,
I'd suggest that it's a new "thing" - we can actually define our
differences instead of just saying "medicare and the fact that we're not
American."

Dave Smith wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:"

"However, the Americans had also been supportive of the Arrow program in many
ways, and in fact at the eleventh hour had offered to donate the
weapons-control system to the program and even fund the purchase of some
Arrows for the RCAF. This suggests that there was no particular American
policy on the Arrow, with some defense factions taking actions hostile to it
and others taking actions favorable to it while in pursuit of their own
agendas."


To clarify, I didn't write a word of the above. It's a snippet of an article I
quoted. I gave the url in my post. Nex

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:02:02 -0600, Hatunen wrote:

This must be why American kids tried to buy the Canadian flag t-shirt
right off my back while in the Greek Islands.

The only nationality Americans are likely to be mistaken for is
Canadian.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

owwow

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:02:02 -0600, Hatunen wrote:

This must be why American kids tried to buy the Canadian flag t-shirt
right off my back while in the Greek Islands.

It was probably cheaper than toilet paper.

The only nationality Americans are likely to be mistaken for is
Canadian.

Are you saying Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, et.
al. are only going to be mistaken for Canadians.

TYGuy 123@xyz wrote:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 15:02:02 -0600, Hatunen wrote:

This must be why American kids tried to buy the Canadian flag t-shirt
right off my back while in the Greek Islands.

It's declarations like these (true or not, as it's one of the ragged, frayed
Canuk myths related over and over and over again millions of times a year in
Canada) that truly endear so many Americans to Canadians in general.

TYGuy, this shows that you can add intelligent, on-point and sophisticated
arguments to the mix.

Oh, a dab of sunblock TYGuy?

Here, rub some on your neck. Theeere you go. Good TYGuy. Nex

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 11:19:51 -0600, Hatunen wrote:

....
But if I follow this thread correctly, it appears that pride
consists largely in not being American.


Yes, for many Canadians that is correct. And it is not that they
dislike Americans, again, only that they think we, as Canadians, are
different.


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On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:31:52 -0700, "TheNewsGuy(Mike)"
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 11:19:51 -0600, Hatunen wrote:

...
But if I follow this thread correctly, it appears that pride
consists largely in not being American.


Yes, for many Canadians that is correct. And it is not that they
dislike Americans, again, only that they think we, as Canadians, are
different.

And, individually, how are you different (Quebecoises aside)?


************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *