Cold War Fighters
Description
The cancellation of the CF-105 Arrow in 1959 holds such a grip on the imagination of Canadians that earlier developments in defence procurement remain in the shadows.
Randall Wakelam corrects this oversight - and offers fresh insight into the AVRO saga and contemporary procurement issues - by detailing the complexities Canada's air force faced in buying fighter aircraft and by showing how the RCAF grew by leaps and bounds. Wakelam shows that cabinet members, chiefs of staff, and air marshals were forced to negotiate competing pressures to arm the air force, please allies, and save money. Their decisions resulted in the CF-100 Canuck and the F-86 Sabre, Canada's front-line defensive aircraft in the coldest years of the Cold War. Although historians assume that the Arrow arrived on the heels of these successes, Wakelam reveals that neither the air force nor the government believed AVRO could manufacture even the CF-100 on budget.
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Colonel (ret'd) Randall Wakelam teaches military history and leadership at the Royal Military College of Canada and is author of The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command. A pilot in his service career, he also worked in aircraft procurement.
Content
1 An Air-Minded Middle Power
2 Planning for Peace
3 International and Industrial Alliances
4 Caught Flat-Footed
5 Facing the Threat in Earnest
6 And So to War
7 Juggling Numbers
8 Putting Rubber on the Ramp
9 Growing Needs, Growing Concerns
10 Fact and Fancy
Appendix A: Royal Canadian Air Force Headquarters Organization Chart, c. 1947
Appendix B: Department of Defence Production Aircraft Delivery Statistics, 1951-54
Notes
Bibliography
Index