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Americans are bullies, plain and simple.. When Canada built the avro arrow fighter jet the US told us to stop because it was better than theirs. We had no choice but to do as we were told because they had a whole bunch of crappier jets.

For those who are interested in reading a similar story of Canadian innovation that was stifled by its own government on similar grounds, you should read about the Avro Arrow, an idea ahead of its time.

Most Canadians should know the story, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

epenguin.org - Believe It!

Only cuz you guys took our Arrows away! :)

Its a miracle! Someone actually mentioned the great, but unknown, Canadian who showed what *really* could be done in practical terms with radio. Thank you for that. Here's another Fessenden site. Canadians are not known for blowing our own horns, which means that we have an awful tendency to allow our brightest and best innovators to be ignored into obscurity over the years, as in the case of the 1940s-50s designers of the Avro Arrow, an aircraft decades ahead of its time. I've been listening to see if Fessenden will be acknowledged during the CBC's Marconi-related broadcasts, but still nothing.

Sorry - I guess I should have posted this interesting detail as well. A quote from here states:

The Mark 2 production version of the arrow, powered with two Avro Canada Iroquois turbo jet engines, would have been capable of achieving Mach 2 with full military load. .

Unfortunately only the prototype was developed, however it did have a successful test flight before the program (and everything related to it) was destroyed. Sounds pretty interesting, considering that flight occurred in 1958!

One example of Canadian engineering abilities might be found in some of the sites regarding the ill-fated Avro Arrow, like here and here. Some of the things achieved with this experimental craft have never been duplicated, and unfortunately the project was only destroyed due to political reasons. It could be said that while the U.S. does have great research abilities, in some areas the U.S. can learn from their Northern neighbours. After all, even NASA is still using the Canadian-made robotic arm on the space shuttle.

Be happy NASA did that work, or you wouldn't have low orbits possible from aircraft.

Also, NASA would love to forget about this low earth orbit crap. Carl Sagan and others have been haranguing it for years to do some Real Work. Funding has been cut, so they have been required to change to the "faster, better, cheaper" model. It's a good idea; some $200 million probes will be lost. But no $5 billion probes are lost.

The Soviets beat the US into orbit, were damn close for the moon, yet none of their Mars probes survived. That NASA has been successful shows a great deal of technichal excellence.

The greatest hope for space exploration is China. They have a big space program, which will, hopefully, scare the Americans into spending more on space to beat the "Communists", like they did against the Soviet Union.