He never forgave PM Diefenbaker

One wouldn’t expect to find reference to one’s previous life experiences in an Archaeology magazine, although someone like Jody Wilson-Reybould would not have been surprised to read about her paleo indian ancestors hunting caribou 9,000 years ago on land now beneath Lake Huron.

However, in my case, I read an article that brought back a memory going back only a fraction of that time. One of the aerodynamic flight test scale models of the AVRO Arrow which had been shot over Lake Ontario on the end of a JATO rocket in the 1950s, has now been found.

Well, that brought memories flooding back, because I then worked in the AVRO Flight Research lab, on aircraft instruments and so it was not archaeology to me, but real memories, of the engineers, test pilots and technicians who had devoted their lives to the Arrow and other AVRO projects.

How many today remember the AVRO Jetliner that carried the first jet air mail between Toronto and New York? Cancelled by our government, which wanted CF100 fighter jets rather than passenger planes. And who even has heard of the top secret flying saucer project?

Incidentally, the beautiful jetliner, which had come out about the same time as the ill-fated deHavilland Comet jetliner, ended its useful life as a flying test bed for the AVRO Iroquois jet engine.

I suppose that then-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker ordered it scrapped as quickly as possible to remove any possible future embarrassment, as he did with the