Of Sports Cars, Aircraft, and Golden Ages article

From the archives...
Newspaper photos from our British Car Toy Run for a Christmas charity, held during the mid to late 1990's.

Click on a pic for a larger view.





























From the British Saloon Car Club of Canada 1998 Calendar.



Here "Bwana" Lynn bags big game Freddy K on a British car safari





Continuing with the car (and aircraft) theme, here's a piece by Freddy K that was published online at UK Autos Articles in the late 1990's, as well as appearing in an automotive book titled "Up Around the Bend".


Comparing notes with a Mustang enthusiast years ago, we were amazed with some of the "advanced" features on my Morgan. Lucas electrics for all their notoriety do have some innovative aspects. The "bump button" on my starter relay, forinstance, is very handy when setting points or when doing a compression test. I discovered this feature only by accident one day, as it wasn't mentioned in the Owner's Manual, the Morgan Four Shop Manual, or any other book I've come across.' My friend thought this feature was wonderful, for with American cars one must connect an external device to perform this function. Likewise, he was impressed with the advance/retard wheel on the distributer. It reminded him somewhat of the GM Delco distributer with the little window in the cap, through which one could adjust the points with a hex key while the engine ran. We both agreed the Lucas system is a great way to adjust ignition timing-and without a wrench! He also liked the front disc brakes and commented that they were rather uncommon on cars of that era. True. I think Jaguar was the first to use these in 1959. But while discs were new and rare on cars of the early 1960s, they had been used for years on aircraft. An innovation from another industry....

One of my favourite car shows in 1991 was a display of both classic autos and planes at The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, in Hamilton during August. This show was also repeated in 1992. This wasn't a typical car show. There were no trophies, no parts vendors. What there was instead, was a lot of history. Such as, the juxtaposition of an immaculately restored P~5l Mustang and a similarly immaculate '65 Ford Mustang sitting beside each other in a WW II hangar with the sounds of Glen Miller all around. These airplanes are not dusty museum pieces, they do fly! While primarily a static show, a couple of vintage planes did do fly-bys, much to my delight. I suppose the cars, or planes, by themselves would be interesting enough, but somehow together the sum is greater than the parts. The atmosphere triggered lots of memories. Perhaps the reason I enjoyed it so much was that it reminded me of my student pilot days and my time as an Air Force technician, now 20 years ago.
When auto enthusiasts gather you often hear debates about the performance, handling, or sound of a particular car or engine. An early T-Bird vis-a-vis a Corvette, the merits of a Hemi, a twin cam, or the sound of a Rover V-8. Motorcyclists will argue that a bike will beat anything with four wheels. Drivers recount the thrill of experiencing a few laps at Shannonville, Mosport, or of a pass down the 1/4 mile at Cayuga. Well, since I have an appreciation for a variety of machines (including antique fire trucks, Fender tube amplifiers and Stratocaster guitars), I gotta say the sweetest sounding engine is the Rolls-Royce Merlin in a Spitfire fighter (it helped save Britain!) and the ultimate thrill is doing over Mach 1 in an old Voodoo jet fighter, when NORAD was active! And one of the most sleekest, elegant sights in my mind has to be the British Vulcan bomber. Not in service now, at air shows during the '80s you could see this giant "manta ray" gracefully climb while its
massive Rolls-Royce engines roared. Besides at air shows, one could have seen this aircraft if you were in the Falklands during this time period, however its temperment was less gentle while it dropped loads of armament against the Argentines!

During my four year tenure with the Queen, I experienced a multitude of aircraft. Multi-engine transport planes are comfortable and roomy, somewhat like luxury saloons, they fly straight and level: comfortable but a bit boring! Except perhaps to the airlines, they like transport pilots. Helicopters are agile like a Cooper. Great in the curves and can stop on a dime. But rotary-wing craft are inherently limited with regards to acceleration and top speed. A Harrier jump jet, however, can maneavour like a chopper but doesn't suffer from the limitations. Yes, the real sports cars of the aeronautical world are the jet fighters. They accelerate like a dragster with lots of top speed (in the order of Mach 2.5) and possess nimble handling. Fast cars are endowed with names that evoke images of speed, power even ferrocity. Names such as Ace, Cobra, Tiger, Avanti and Jaguar. So it is with jet fighters - Tomcat, Eagle, Falcon, Hornet. And before those, names like: Vampire, Sabre, Banshee, and Meteor. As there was a golden era of British sports cars, the golden era of Canadian aviation was the 1950s. Canada was the 4th largest military power after the war, and it was a world "air power" in that decade. This was a position that Canada may have found uncomfortable and unnecessary after Korea.
Standing at the end of the runway at Canadian Forces Base North Bay in the late '70s, I remember the sight of the last remaining CF-l00 Canucks (nicknamed "Clunks") passing overhead on takeoff. These craft were over 25 years old. Although obsolete and dated, they were still air-worthy and looked great. At one time, there were almost 700 of these birds, some were even purchased by the Belgian Air Force. Built by A.V. Roe (AVRO) Aircraft of Toronto, this was the first and last all-Canadian operational jet fighter. It was a twin-engine, all weather subsonic interceptor. I was working out of the Alert hangars which were then empty. During earlier times, these hangars housed pairs of North American Air Defence (NORAD) interceptors which stood ready, 24 hours a day, to intercept Russian bombers before they could get close to the populated south. At a moments notice, air crew and ground crew would fire them up right in the hangar. They'd roll out and being by the end of the runway, they'd practically takeoff right out the door! When I was there, 414 "Black Knight" squadron was the last "Clunk" squadron. No longer in a combat
role, they were being used for electronic warfare, which was playing the part of bad guys in exercises and trying to jam our radar. I tried my hand one day on the CF-100 simulator. What an experience! One moment you're at several thousand feet, the next, on the deck. Trying to land it, I crashed and burned three miles short of the runway. My thirty-five hours as a pilot in a Cessna didn't prepare me to be a jet-jock! Anyway, the Clunks were retired in 1981, on their 30th anniversary of operational service. Their airframe life-span had exceeded all expectations, it's just that they couldn't get the small number of engines for them from Orenda any longer.

CFB North Bay was fascinating for me for other reasons. Although I never went looking, I was told you could still find the remains cf the Bomarc missile bunkers up in the hills. The Bomarcs were large anti-bomber missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. There was a big debate about these weapons, in the early '60s which helped bring down the Diefenbaker government. Bomarcs weren't accurate enough without the nuke warheads, so they were eventually fitted. although we had the missiles, I'm told American personnel held the keys to arm the warheads, as they owned these sensitive weapons! The Bomarcs were a boondoggle, and shortly after their inception it was announced that further implementation was cancelled. It could never replace a manned fighter. As a result, 446 Missile Squadron at North Bay was one of only two batteries that came into being. By 1972, these were finally scrapped and air defence was solely the rhealm of fighters once more.

CFB North Bay was also the home of the Canadian Norad Headquarters. The nerve center here receives signals from the radar stations of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line, and co-ordinates the fighter defences in our region. This command center was called the SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) but was better known as "the hole". Over six hundred feet below ground through the solid rock of the Canadian Shield, a three story buiding sits within a cavern. Access is via two tunnels, the main one over a mile long. Propane buses take you down past the thick blast doors. The complex can be totally self-contained, when "buttoned-up". Having its own power plant, water supply, sanitation, hospital and food stores - it was meant to survive a direct nuclear attack. The building even sits on rubber insulators, to minimize shock. The place was awesome to visit! It housed the two largest computers in the world. 50,000 vacuum tubes. Occupying whole rooms, they were state of the art in 1959 but bulky and antequated in 1979. IBM staff did constant maintenance, mostly replacing tubes according to schedules. Controllers monitored radar screens, the computer identifying planes by referring to flight plans. The war room was shades of
"Dr. Stranqelove" with its maps, displays, and boards showing the current threat to North America and our stage of alert readiness. I decided if I had to be somewhere during atomic attack, this was the place!
AVRO Aircraft was a busy place in the late 1940s & early 1950s. Besides the Canuck program, they had also built the first jet airliner in North America, called the "Jetliner". The British "Comet" only beat the Jetliner off the ground by a couple of weeks, otherwise we would have beenfirst in the world! Sales to airlines never materialized due to the Korean war, however Howard Hughes leased one as a personal toy. AVRO was also commisioned by the US Air Force to attempt to build a "flying saucer". Called the Avrocar, it was a huge fan that hovered only a few feet off the ground with poor control. The project actually was the first hovercraft. Their most ambitious project was the CF-105 Arrow fighter. The RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) was looking to the future and realized that a supersonic replacement for the "Clunk" would be needed. Friends and foes were developing such planes. Required were powerful new engines, and the RCAF desired a modern weapons control system along with a guided missile for a weapon (a vast improvement over the existing "dumb" rockets and guns). A formidable package that would have taken the RCAF through the 1960's and beyond. Canadian Westinghouse was given the task of creating the "Velvet Glove" missile and ASTRA fire control, while the Orenda Engines division of AVRO designed the massive engines. As the major contractor, AVRO designed the airframe & would assemble the components. The Arrow's design was decades ahead of its time. Its delta wing shape had proven itself easily capable of supersonic speeds. Its twin Orenda Iroquois engines were capable of 25,000 pounds of thrust each. This is the level of power of present day fighters, far beyond
anyone else in the late '50s. Arrow #6 was to have been flown with these engines in 1959. Had it done so, it surely would have set records for top speed, climb rate, and altitude. Sadly, the whole project was cancelled a few months before it was ready. Costs had gotten out of control. The RCAF wanted the best of everything, and perhaps should have went with existing weapons and engines. The government had spent some $300 million on all the development and Arrows would have costed an additional $3-$4 million a copy, when the government hoped to spend about a million each. Originally, about 500 were to be built. Even for as few as 100 planes, the further cost was high. Our allies, though interested in the technology and potential of the project, expressed no firm interest in buying copies of the plane for their military. They had to protect their own companies. Authorities have said that had we made 20 or so aircraft operational, one squadron, and it was shown what it was capable of, the American forces would be clamouring to have it built under licence in their country. Much like the English Harrier was later built for the US Marines. The Diefenbaker government also felt that the bomber threat was diminishing (bombers still persists today but the cold war has finally ended) that ballistic missiles were the new threat, & manned fighters were thus obsolete. It was the missile age, and the Conservatives mistakenly put a lot of faith in the Bomarc for our defence. These assumptions were wrong. Whithin two years of scrapping the Arrow, the politicians had no choice but to buy American, obtaining Mc.Donnell CF-101 Voodoos for NORAD duty . Likewise, to replace our Korean war Sabres in Europe, they purchased Lougheed CF-104 Starfighters for our NATO contingent. Cheaper and adequate, but not in the same league as the Arrow. When Dief pulled the plug, the results were devastating. AVRO immediately shut down all work (a desperate political move perhaps) putting nearly 15,000 employees out of work. The company was dependant on this contract & had no other projects, other than the small work force involved with the flying saucer for the US. All five of the flying Arrows, as well as the completed sections on the assembly line, were cut for scrap. The government owned all the aircraft & it was secret stuff. Having no use for it all, it was all destroyed. Our greatest aviation achievement and not one was saved for research or for display at the National Museum at Rockcliffe. The government also torched plans, drawings and other artifacts. Engineering expertise and future research and development was lost. A whole industry destroyed. Some of the talented AVRO engineers went on to NASA and helped put an American on the moon.
So, the CF-104 Starfighter would soldier on through the 60s & 70s instead. It was a single engine, stubby winged craft. I remember that it had a strange howl when it taxied if a little throttle was applied. Pilots dubbed it "the widowmaker". Our role in Germany required that it fly low and fast, not what it was intended for. It's wings didn't allow it to glide well, so if the single engine flamed-out, it dropped like a rock. Hence the nickname. I attended a helicopter course at CFB Chatham (New Brunswick) in 1980. This was the home of 416 Lynx Squadron, one of our three NORAD interceptor squadrons at the time, which was still flying the Voodoo. Since I had a High Altitude Indoctrination (HAI) qualification (a three day course that allowed one to ride in a jet fighter: teaching the effects of lack of oxygen, explosive decompression, the art of ejection, survival at sea or in the wild,etc.) I was elligible for a ride. This was indeed an experience! The bang of the afterburner kicking in, the feel of G-force, the silence at supersonic speed (the noise is behind you) winging over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 416 Squadron was involved with NORAD exercises at the time. Fighters scrambling from the alert hangars, day & night. The windows in my barracks room would rattle and plaster would fall from the ceiling as these planes thundered off in the night. Fantastic yes, but I couln't help but wonder "what if"? Canada was again purchasing foreign replacements for these planes and "the widowmakers". The cost of the contenders was in the $ 20-25 million a copy range. The US CF-18 Hornet was chosen and the existing fighters would retire shortly. If the Canuck lasted thirty years, I wondered if I would have gotten a ride on the Arrow instead?
Fast forward to 1998. Defence hasn't been a growth industry for decades. The RCAF didn't know it at the time but 1958 would perhaps be its peak & pinnacle, when it had 58,000 personnel in uniform & numerous squadrons of up to date planes - as well as a dream aircraft undergoing air testing. The golden age would steadily decline from that point onward. Many of the air bases I knew are now gone. Recently, it was announced that CFB North Bay will be gone. Authorities ponder what can the underground complex be used for, or like an unwanted in-ground swimming pool, it might simply be filled-in. Likewise, the base in Germany was decommisioned, as has CFB Toronto (Downsview). CFB Chatham hasn't heard the rumble of jet interceptors in some years. Neither has Downsview. The city of North York has wanted the land for years & has announced that it will create an entertainment center there, kind of a "Disneyland North" tourist attraction.
Likewise, the golden age of sports or British cars declined. In the 1950s, there were numerous marques. The Japanese visited the state of the art Austin factory in Britain to "Learn the ropes". They took good notes! It wouldn't be long before they would dominate the auto industry. The Mazda Miata is now the affordable sports car of the 90s. With recent buyouts of Rover & Rolls-Royce, the quirky Morgan factory is one of the last British car makers, in a once proud industry. These are times when nationalism has been replaced by multi-national corporations. One of the last hold-outs is a company like SAAB - which not only makes cars but high performance aircraft. The Swedes, it seems, held onto their dream of a domestic automotive & aircraft industry.
I believe that it was Wilfred Laurier that said : "The 20th century would belong to Canada". While that never totally came to pass, there was a time of optimism, a time when our dollar was higher than the US greenback, a time when the sky & growth held no limit. Yes, there was fear of "the bomb" but there was also a sense that anything could be done here: peaceful uses of nuclear power, "Peace-keeping" operations to save the world, & faith in being "Haves", rather than "Have Nots". Expectations that our children, and each subsequent generation, would have a continually greater standard of living in the future. This "golden age" was before the cut-backs, "Social Contracts" , globalization, and other events that have occured. Historians & some folk may reflect back on the 1950s & 60s as a period of many "Golden Ages", that are likely not to be repeated here. I guess as Canadians, we're not meant to be high-tech producers. The experience of the Jetliner, Arrow and the ill-fated hydrofoil "Bras D'Or", would confirm this. After all, there isn't a Canadian car company or sports car either.
For those that yearn for another age, the "Classics of the Golden Age Show" at the Canadian Warplane Heritage hangar, sadly too is now also a memory for some years. However, the Healey Club has resurrected the concept of a show of cars & vintage aircraft at the Warplane Heritage's new hangar, last year. On May 24, 1998, British car owners can strap on their leather helmets, goggles, & silk scarves - and reminice about the many "Golden Ages". Hope to see you at the Hamiton Airport, so that we all may "remember when"!

Fred Kuzyk
President, Morgan Sports Car Club of Canada