Chasing Arrows: An Avro Arrow Story

Posted on Front Page, Fund These Films

In a hanger in Strathmore, Alberta, volunteers are building a flying supersonic Jet, the Arrow II. They’re doing it to answer one big question:

Can Canadians still do big things?

2025 is a year of change for Canadians. Old alliances fade, new alliances form, and Canada will rise or fall by what we do next. Once again we protect our waters, our Arctic, our skies from Russia, China, even the United States.

1945 was a year of change, also: the Second World War ended, Canada was left with a defence industry many times its own size. As the Soviet threat rose in Europe, the nuclear age brought many dangers to our skies, and it fell to Canada to defend North America fom the menace of bombers from Russia.

The Avro Arrow was the most advanced interceptor of its time, a plane that was faster and more high-tech than anything in the world, demanded by the premiere branch of the Canadian Forces to be used to intercept Russian bombers carrying Nuclear bombs. It existed, and for a time made Canadian engineering and resourcefulness the best on the planet. But like so many Canadian stories, this one ends in tragedy. All the Arrows were destroyed, the engineers and craftsmen moved to other countries, and a chapter closed on Canadian sovereignty. With the beginning of the Defence Procurement Agreement with the United States, the dream of building our own fighter planes was lost.

But times are changing. 2025 is a new era, and the arrival of the next quarter-century brings with it the cloud of the threat of war, and the need to stand again on our own two feet and touch the sky.

…Back to the hanger in Strathmore, AB: in a project spanning a generation, beginning with a model built by Doug Hyslop for the CBC TV movie in 1997, and ending with the first flight of the Arrow II sometime around 2027, dedicated volunteers will have given decades of their lives to the dream of flight. When finished, the Arrow II will be the fastest home-built plane ever created.

This is NOT a story about a plane. This is a story about the people who build it. It’s a story about Mike Ward, who on his deathbed begged the doctor for three more years to see the Arrow II fly. It’s about Steve Rose, who will be the first to risk his life flying a plane that’s only been proven in the simulator. It’s about Coralee and Mackenzie Hilton, who were sucked into the story of the Arrow and who run the Avro Museum in Strathmore, dedicated to the stories of the genius people who made the original Arrow fly.

All this takes place against the background of today’s Canada, a nation that sometimes forgets itself: that we are a nation who can and has done great things, and are doing them again, everyday.

Why must I make this film? A Calgary native who resides in Quebec, I’m often a skip away from Strathmore. As a fan of the Avro Museum there, I’ve become friends either many of the volunteers as I visit and shoot every time I’m down. This story of the redemption of a Canadian icon captured my imagination immediately, like so many others, after I saw the 1997 CBC film about the Arrow. This led me to the Arrow Museum. Previous films I’ve done have covered nostalgia topics with care and love, and I know that deep down what’s most important is not the Arrow itself, but the people building it, both then and now (Noah Leon, DOP-Editor).

More about the film:

The film features interviews with real volunteers, and with Arrow experts such as Russ Isinger, Erin Gregory, Palmiro Campagna, Yvan Blondin, and others. It blends the story of the first Arrow with the story of the Arrow II, and above all tells the stories of the people who work to see her fly again.

  • Chapter 1: Jet Engines in a Fibreglass Body. In this pilot episode, we meet two of the volunteers and first see the Arrow II. Unfortunately, it ends in tragedy as one of the members passes away unexpectedly.
  • Chapter 2: Waiting with Cutting Torches. Why were all copies of the Arrow destroyed? And why are fans still scarred by this violence today. If Canada was a person, this would be our PTSD.
  • Chapter 3: Dream Simulator: The Arrow II guys are building their plane first on the simulator, just like the original Avro engineers did. In this episode a sceptic is converted, and we learn that the first Arrow flew first in a a computer, except that computer was the size of a warehouse.
  • Chapter 4: Missing the (Bo)marc. The government of the day declared the Arrow obsolete, then it replaced it with an obsolete American missile system. Today defence procurement follows this same pattern, right up until the (almost) procurement of the Boeing SuperHornet. Meanwhile, the guys and girls at the museum struggle with a materials issue when attaching the plane’s tail.
  • Chapter 5: ORENDA is the Magic Word. The Avro Museum gets two jet engines from an old Learjet, and then is gifted two more. These engines are related to the legendary ORENDA engine which was an accidental casualty of the Arrow’s cancellation.
  • Chapter 6: Declassified. Thanks to Palmiro Campagna and others, documents of record are now finally open to scrutiny. At the Avro Museum, too, there are boxes of files lifted from Avro Canada that were presumed destroyed by the government.
  • Chapter 7: The Vale of Eden. There are other Arrow replicas, like the one in Edenvale, Ontario. They don’t fly, but a visit there gives an idea of the immensity of the Arrow project, and the sheer beauty of the plane. Following musician Gord as he visits hallowed ground and can only respond in song.
  • Chapter 8: Paul Coffey’s New Bling. Aldrwoman Carolyn Parrish has a pet project, and it’s going to cost millions. But, Paul Coffey park with have an Avro Arrow replica to stand beside its existing CF100. What could the guys in Springfield do with that kind of money? In fact, money woes are starting to become a problem to the continuation of work at the museum. Will they make it to 2027?
  • Chapter 9: Diefenbaker’s Comuppance. Diefenbaker is often raked over the coals for his decision to cancel the original Arrow. But not everyone blames the Dief’ for what turns out to be a controversial game of blame. Can we let the Chief off the hook?
  • Chapter 10: Parallel Dreams. There is one casualty of the cancellation of the Arrow who is insufficiently mourned: The Avro Jetliner. Paul Davies and (insert name here) argue that the most bitter pill for Canadian aviation is the loss of the Avro Jetliner, arguably the first and finest jet passenger plane in the world which, like the Arrow, survives only in pieces at the Canadian Air and Space museum. What lessons does this hold for how we deal with Bombardier, among others in 2025 and beyond.