I'll bet you didn't know that in the late 50's, the most advanced fighter plane in the world was designed, engineered and built in Canada. The Avro Arrow was nearly twice as fast as the fastest U.S. jet at the time. It could fly higher, faster, and for longer periods than any other jet aircraft at the time...
In an unbelievable political blunder, the Canadian Government scrapped the Arrow program in favor of a dysfunctional U.S. built Bomarc missile system (that was also scrapped at a later date). In the process, the Avro Aircraft Co. went bankrupt. Canada had the most cutting edge aerospace company in the world - that could have literally put man on the moon, and they threw it away.
Jim Chamberlin from Kamloops B.C., went on to become the head of NASA Engineering, and with a team of 33 ex-Avro engineers, helped drive the Gemini and Apollo manned space programs.
Jack Woodman from Sakatoon, Saskatchewan became the director of flight testing for Lockheed Aircraft.
James Floyd became senior designer for the UK SST, working on the Concorde.
John Hodges, and Fred Matthews became flight directors for the Gemini and Apollo space programs.
Tex Roberts became head of the trajectory group at the Mission Control Center.
John Sandford became Director of Engineering at North American Aviation - Space Shuttle Launch Systems.
Mario Pesando became Senior Engineering Scientist at NASA for the Saturn V project.
Bryan Erb became Assistant Manager of the U.S.- Canadian Space Station Project.
Carl Lindow became Development Program Manager for Boeing Space Programs
Ken Cooke became Landing Gear Designer for NASA & the Concorde.
Frank Brame became Chief Project Engineer at Boeing.
And the list goes on....
This was the largest single brain drain in Canadian history. Another 49,000 Canadians lost their jobs as well. Imagine what this group could have accomplished, had Avro been allowed to continue on it's path.
Today's modern F-18 still falls short of performance levels expected of the Arrow in 1959.
TR