Arrow models, not prototypes sunk in Lake Ontario
With his obsession of trying to keep the record straight, Robert T. Rock thanks the Citizen for “lining up the Daffy Duck letters” he claims were written by Ms. Moen, Mr. Innis and Mr. Perry. (On communism, conservatism and misinformation)
Well Mr. Robert T. Rock, now that you have been given press on that subject, may I give you some of your own as far as misinformation goes.
In your letter you take aim at John Diefenbaker stating “he was a failure as a prime minister. No one should ever forget how he put the prototypes of the Avro Arrow on the bottom of one of the Great Lakes”.
You are dead wrong and if I may correct you, what went into Lake Ontario were small test models, not “prototypes” as you so mistakenly stated.
For your information, and that of your readers, unfortunately the prototypes were reduced to salvage aluminum. The only part of the prototypes left is a single cockpit component of the prototypes, which is on display in a museum in Ottawa.
You may have “majored in economics and commerce, with a minor in history at university” Mr. Rock. but for your information I spent my entire career in aviation, and it just so happens I was working across the airfield from where the Avro Arrows were manufactured and was there the very day Diefenbaker brought the development to an end.
However, there have been a lot of claims made about the Arrow, but in fact it was limited by a long shot simply because of its design, being that of a delta wing aircraft.
John Walker
Cobble Hill