The Arrow versus the F35? Tell me it isn't so.

Lewis Mackenzie is not my favourite retired Canadian officer, that would be General Richard Rohmer; mostly, because Lew is a self-promoter, while Rohmer is a behind-the-scenes-get-er-done kind of guy.

But every so often Lew gets it right, even if his idea is pie-in-the-sky.  Take for instance the article in the Arguments section of today's Ottawa Citizen.

Lew is making a case for the Avro Arrow design to be updated into Mark 3 and Mark 4 models and built of today's materials here in Canada.  Instead of buying the F35; spend the money in Canada, reboot the Canadian aerospace industry and get a better aircraft for the effort.

For guys like me, and there are many of us, this is music to our ears.  All in the CF105 was the class act of fighter/interceptor air craft when it was designed and built in the 1950s.  The decision to scrap it was a political one made for political reasons.  These things happen.  Read my article on the Burnelli lift-body design that never flew for political reasons (http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Canada/Canada_Car/ccf_part_3_CBY3.htm).

For the same reasons that the Burnelli designs were never built, the CF105 will never be built in any Mark format.

Nice idea, Lew, but it just won't fly (sorry for the pun).