arrow RL201

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally posted by mike mckinley
hi folks

well, the 16th was my birthday, and some good friends decided that a celebration was in order....after three bottles of wine, smoked salmon, and some good cigars i have the following to report. the other day i had a discussion with one of these people about the avro arrow....as it turns out, her father in law worked for orenda, who built the engines for the arrow. at the party tonight she handed me an envelope and in it was an 8 x 10 b&w glossy from the day they rolled out the first one rl201. avro gave these out to employee's in attendance that day....a great picture tied to a great piece of canadian history that never got the chance to "spread its wings" my thanks to them both!! mike


now it's hangover time

Mike, et al, that photo is from p40 of a book titled "Arrow", Boston Mills Press.

It was taken 4 Oct 57 at Malton airport. I was there; a sixteen year old totally in awe of the proceedings. Unfortunately, the Russians put Sputnik into space that same day, and that made the Arrow news somewhat secondary.

I still have a commorative plastic lapel pin of the Arrow, an item given out by the thousands for those in attendance.

RL 201 first flew 25 Mar 58, Jan Zurakowski Pilot in Command (PIC).

I am an amateur Arrow historian and have about a dozen books relating to it on my bookshelf.

Through a certain amount of research, I'm fairly certain (in my own mind) just why the Arrow project was killed.