18 April 2004 6:34am (CDT)
This morning being the first clear fog less and
rainless day that we have had in weeks, I decided to get my hands the
joy stock on the long range camera on our building once more. I wish
that I hadn't because what my eyes saw came with huge disappointment
and much sadness as the once great A.V. Roe site has now become just
a distant memory, eradicated from the earth.
I still had hope when the AVRO Office building could be plainly seen
but now even that is gone. I even had to scan the site back and forth
several times to try to figure out where things were supposed to be
but alas there is no Bay 1, Bay 2 or Bay 3, no Details Building, no
steam house, no office building, no Victory Aircraft entrance, in fact
nothing south of the railway tracks exists at all anymore. All that
is left of this once glorious site is a huge pile of dirt and a few
bits of concrete and steel behind what was once the Details Building
as the "Jaws of Death" continue to work at a never ending
paces chopping up yet another old Avro building. The site shall soon
be just a field.
First they destroy Jim Floyd's aircraft and now they have eradicated
any sign of the plant where thousands of men and women thought up, designed,
built and tested the CF-100, C-102, (Jim's favourite), the fabulous
CF-105 Avro Arrow and the Avrocar. And just to make matters worse, British
Airways and Air France have scrapped Jim's other great success, the
B.A.C. Concorde.
It is enough to make you want to cry!! Maybe it is time that I got myself
a "new" favourite aircraft...perhaps the Eurofighter!! Hopefully
THIS aircraft will outlive me for a change as it is well out the grasp
of the destructive Canadian government!
Thanks for listening,