A.V. Roe Canada
 |
|
| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Fate | Aircraft divested, remainder restructured |
| Successor | Hawker Siddeley Canada |
| Founded | 1945 |
| Defunct | 1962 |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
|
Key people
|
Crawford Gordon Jr. James C. Floyd Jack Frost Janusz Żurakowski |
| Products | Aircraft, Turbojet engines |
|
Number of employees
|
50,000 (1958) |
| Parent | Avro |
| Subsidiaries |
Orenda Engines Canadian Car and Foundry |
Avro Canada was a Canadian aircraft manufacturing company. It started in 1945 as an aircraft plant and within thirteen years became the third-largest company in Canada, one of the largest 100 companies in the world, and directly employing over 50,000. Avro Canada was best known for the highly advanced CF-105 Arrow, but through growth and acquisition, it rapidly become a major, integrated company that had diverse holdings.
Following the cancellation of the CF-105 Arrow the company ceased operations in 1962.
During the Second World War, Victory Aircraft in Malton, Ontario, was Canada's largest aircraft manufacturer. Prior to 1939, as a part of National Steel Car Ltd. of Hamilton, the concern had been one of a number of "shadow factories" set up in Canada to produce British aircraft designs in safety. National Steel Car had turned out Avro Anson trainers, Handley Page Hampden bombers, Hawker Hurricane fighters and Westland Lysander army cooperation aircraft. National Steel Car Corporation of Malton, Ontario was formed in 1938 and renamed Victory Aircraft Limited in 1942 when the Canadian government took over ownership and management of main plant. During the Second World War, Victory Aircraft built Avro (UK) aircraft: 3,197 Anson trainers, 430 Lancaster bombers, six Lancastrian, one Lincoln bomber and one York transport.
In 1944, an Advisory Committee on Aircraft Manufacture was established by the Canadian government, the Canadian Director of Aircraft Production wrote to Minister of Munitions and Supply C.D. Howe in 1944 to express the "utmost importance to Canada" of the establishment of a Canadian aircraft industry, and UK-based Avro also established in 1944 a company searching for post-war opportunities. Bob Leckie of the RCAF was a strong advocate over many years, for a wholly domestic "end-to-end" industry, that would design and build aircraft (and their engines) in Canada. However, the Department of National Defense, according to Avro's Roy Dobson, gave "a cold reception" to doing any more than the fabrication and assembly of aircraft and engines under licence. Howe, as Minister of Reconstruction and Minister of Munitions and Supply (later Reconstruction and Supply), brokered the deal with the Hawker Siddeley Group to take over the Victory Aircraft plant in 1945 with Frederick T. Smye hired by HSG's Roy Dobson as its first employee. Smye, born in Hamilton, Ontario, had risen through the ranks of the government's departments overseeing wartime aircraft production, to Assistant General Manager of Federal Aircraft Limited, the Crown Corporation managing production of the Avro Anson at the National Steel Car/Victory Aircraft plant.
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Wikipedia