Avro Arrow designer, 95, honoured
By IAN ROBERTSON, Toronto Sun
The designer of the ill-fated Avro Arrow was honoured today at the Canadian Air and Space Museum at Downsview Park Monday.
James Charles “Jim” Floyd, 95, is considered an aerospace pioneer of the postwar era for his efforts with the jet interceptor as well as his role in designing Canada's first passenger jet.
Though frail and not often seen in public, Floyd has attended many of the reunions of the men and women who caused the military and political world to sit up and take notice of what Canadians could do in the air half-a-century ago.
The CF-105 project began in 1953, culminating in production of five flying “delta-wing” aircraft destined to revolutionize military flying around the world.
But on the eve of the sixth Arrow having its Canadian-designed Iroquois engines fitted — the other five flew with American-built Pratt&Whitney engines — the Arrow project was cancelled by Parliament on Feb. 20, 1959.
The shutdown in Malton, dubbed “Black Friday,” meant the destruction of all five flying aircraft and the unfinished plates on the assembly line.
It is considered a historic blow to an industry that might have been.
Some say the Arrow never achieved its potential and was too costly, defenders insist politics and interference from Washington played a major role in downgrading the project’s potential.
Thousands of people were thrown out of work, many hastily recruited by the American space industry, including NASA projects that ultimately landed men on the moon.
Today’s event honoured Floyd as one of CARP's 25 top Canadians.
“He played a pioneering role in Canada’s aviation industry,” the advocacy group for aging Canadians said in a statement.
Born in Manchester, England, he started as an apprentice in the UK with A.V. Roe and Company.
During his early career, he worked as an engineer on several aircraft development projects, including the famous Lancaster bomber, some of which were built by Victory Aircraft at Malton, just outside Toronto.
When that factory was taken over by Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada), Floyd headed its engineering team.
Later as Avro’s vice-president of engineering, he was involved in the design and development of both aircraft plus the CF-100 fighter which the Royal Canadian Air Force ordered during the Korean war, retiring the last one in 1981.
When the government asked AVRO to delay work on the Jetliner, the lone model was doomed.
Heralded in the U.S. as the first jet-powered passenger aircraft, it ended its days in test and support flights and was also scrapped.
Its cockpit, like that of the sixth Arrow, is in a museum in Ottawa.
After helping many AVRO colleagues find work in other firms, Floyd and his family returned to England, where he headed the Advanced Projects Group for another leading aircraft firm, Hawker Siddeley. Its work led to a joint research study with another firm, whose design resulted in the famous delta-wing Concorde passenger jet.
Since his retirement 31 years ago, he has devoted himself to educational and youth-oriented projects.
Floyd and his family returned to Canada in 1981 and lives in the GTA, not far from where the now-demolished Avro buildings once stood off Airport Dr.
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