Fonds HS - Hawker Siddeley Canada Limited fonds

A.V. Roe Canada Limited was incorporated on September 1, 1945, and took over the plant and operations of Victory Aircraft Limited. Based in Malton, Ontario, Victory was a Crown corporation producing Avro Lancaster bombers until the end of the Second World War. A.V. Roe Canada Limited worked with the Canadian government to convert Victory’s wartime infrastructure and expertise into post-war commercial civilian and military aircraft manufacturing. In 1946, A.V. Roe Canada acquired Turbo Research Limited, another Crown corporation, which designed aircraft jet engines. A.V. Roe Canada in 1946 then had two divisions: the Aircraft Division based in Malton, Ontario, and the Gas Turbine Division, based in Malton and Nobel, Ontario. By 1955, the two divisions became separate operational companies, Avro Aircraft Limited and Orenda Engines Limited, of the holding company A.V. Roe Canada. A.V. Roe Canada continued to acquire subsidiary companies throughout the 1950s.

A.V. Roe Canada was itself a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.-based Hawker Siddeley Group. While its geographic distance and its size (in 1956/57 45% of the entire Hawker Siddeley Group worldwide business was taking place in Canada) gave it some independence, A.V. Roe Canada was always ultimately responsible to its U.K. parent. It did not report to Avro (UK), but directly to the Hawker Siddeley Group. By the time A.V. Roe Canada acquired Dominion Steel and Coal in 1956, there were forty-four companies operating under the holding company. From 300 employees in 1945, A.V. Roe Canada had grown to over 20,000 employees in 1957.

A.V. Roe Canada Limited is most well-known for the design and development of three aircraft types. The Avro Canada CF-100 all-weather fighter saw extensive service in Canada and Europe, serving with both the RCAF and the Belgian Air Force. The CF-100 is the only Canadian designed fighter aircraft to enter series production. On August 19, 1949, the Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner was the second (by 13 days) passenger jet aircraft to fly - the first in North America. The Jetliner was ahead of its time in many ways but it never entered production as more and more Avro Canada resources were put toward the CF-100. The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was the third major design and a highly ambitious project, intended to combine a new supersonic (Mach 2+) airframe with newly designed Orenda Iroquois engines, new (Douglas Sparrow) air-to-air missiles and a new (RCA Astra) integrated electronic system into a state of the art air defence weapon platform. On February 20, 1959, the Government of Canada terminated the Arrow project for a combination of technical, fiscal, political and military reasons that remain controversial today. Over 14,000 Avro Canada employees lost their jobs. A.V. Roe Canada took steps to reduce its increasingly precarious dependence on aircraft manufacturing and defence procurement, from then on only continuing with the development of the Avrocar testbeds built for the US Army until this project was cancelled in 1961. Orenda Engines created the subsidiary Orenda Industrial Limited that sold and repaired diesel engines and industrial turbines. Hawker Siddeley Group bought de Havilland at the end of 1959, including de Havilland Canada (DHC). A.V. Roe Canada’s non-aviation elements were renamed Hawker Siddeley Canada Limited on May 1, 1962. Its aviation interests were transferred to DHC on July 27, 1962.

Hawker Siddeley Canada sold 40% of Orenda Engines in 1966 to United Aircraft Corporation, parent company of United Aircraft of Canada Limited, today’s Pratt & Whitney Canada. Orenda manufactured parts for Pratt & Whitney’s jet engines. However, in 1973, Hawker Siddeley Canada bought out United Aircraft’s Orenda holdings. Besides Orenda Engines, Hawker Siddeley Canada’s had numerous divisions and/or subsidiaries over time, including: Halifax Shipyards, Canadian Steel Foundries, Canadian Car and Foundry, Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation, Canadian General Transit (railway cars), A-R Technologies Inc. (aero engine repair and overhaul), Kockums Cancar (sawmill equipment), Canadian Steel Wheel and several other industrial and engineering businesses. The British Government nationalized the weapon, aircraft and space equipment activities of the Hawker Siddeley Group parent company in 1977. Hawker Siddeley Canada sold its remaining business assets in a series of transactions in the early 1990s and effectively ceased most business operations by 1996, when its remaining aviation assets, including Orenda Engines, were sold to Magellan Aerospace Corporation. Hawker Siddeley Canada continued to exist as a shell corporation until its discontinuation as a federal corporation on December 22, 2004.