WE WILL Rebuild You…

…we have the technology.

The MIGHTY LANC is being rebuilt at TAM.

THIS LANC was used by the RCAF to give OPERATIONAL ASSISTANCE to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

ALL! …that remains :::...

ALL that remains…

… of our beloved Arrows.

Arrow 206.

Arrow 206 NEVER flew.

But of all the completed Arrows… she was the ONLY ONE fitted with those MIGHTY and now LEGENDARY, Canadian, ORENDA IROQUOIS engines.

And Arrow 206 was just hours away from her maiden flight when AVRO received the government’s senseless order to destroy HER and all other existing Arrows!

Just HOW MANY Arrows were scrapped?

27.

TEN complete Arrows.

Seventeen in various stages of completion, with parts in existence to complete each one.

HERE SHE IS, 206, forever perched above the admiring crowds at the Canadian Aviation Museum, formerly RCAF Station Rockcliffe (where I was born, incidentally).

A beautiful, and silent, songbird from that era in Canadian history when Canadians could achieve anything… just because we wanted to.

MADE IN TORONTO.

MADE IN CANADA.

And in 1959… there was nothin’ better.

Anywhere.

♫ ♫ LAMENT our lost Arrows ~
‘nuff said–

And THE CROWDS Did Come…

……for the Vickers Vimy. Even a Sopwith Camel showed up.

IT'S HARD to believe, but I did see a former high school teacher (Streetsville Secondary School) at this event.

Not right away……but later, when I was looking over my photos!

Ain't life strange~

CONNIE DEPARTING (YYZ) for Seattle…IMMEDIATELY!

No time for engines…

Or even time to use a runway.

All aboard.

Let’s go…go…GO!

Giddeey-up!

So it’s finally over.

Another TORONTO ICON is no more.

Once a strange landmark visible by all, at the far-flung end of PEARSON (YYZ)…a mystery then…as the restaurant that was never open…that exotic, modern-age transporter of men…that once was.

Back in those distant 50s.

NO SOUP FOR YOU…now, Toronto!

She leaves Toronto for Seattle, and is owned without restriction by the MUSEUM of FLIGHT. The Toronto Aerospace Museum lost her hard fought battle to keep her in Canada. Why didn’t anyone involve PETA to make the save? CONNIES are definitely an endangered species.

Once in Seattle, this rare Super Connie WILL BE restored and painted up in TCA colours, in her old 50s TCA livery, courtesy of Air Canada!

For all museum visitors to see.

Visitors come from worldwide destinations to see Seattle’s “rare birds”. And she has many such visitors, there in the shadow of Boeing’s LEGENDARY Production Facilities.

WAIT! Folks you can relax…no modern Air Canada TOOTHPASTE LIVERY will ever be smeared on her fuselage. This Connie has suffered enough indignities already!!

What about TCA?

SO LONG AGO…long before Air Canada became incorporated as such in 1965…she was T.C.A., folks!! Yes…pick yourself up off the ground…Trans-Canada Airlines, and this was one of the wild aircraft she flew–

Back in those days when men were still men, and Canada had an Arrow~

(So, tears now…)

GOOD-BYE Connie…until we catch up, again, in Seattle ~~