The hundredth anniversary of powered flight in Canada will be on February, 23, 2009.
It is also the fiftieth anniversary of canceling the Iroquois engine & AVRO's Arrow.
A engine and airplane some say ten years ahead of it's time......
As a young boy in Canada I remember even as I was growing up the "Arrow" story.
Did RL204 get away? We know X-116 one of two Iroquois engines ended up in the UK and has been found.
X-115 the other engine for RL206 ran into problems on the test stand and never made it over to AVRO.
RL201-RL205 were powered by Pratt & Whitney J-75 engines 1500lbs heavier and 40% less thrust.
When the Arrow program came to and end RL205 had only 40 minutes on it's airframe.
The Department of Defence Production also had 19 J-75 engines four P-3 prototypes and 15 P-5 production models
at a total cost of $8,568,000 (US). A deal was struck with Pratt & Whitney to buy back the "Old" engines for $2,030,640 (US).
There are many like me that wonder what may have happened if we had continued to develop this engine & plane....