its been said that the Apollo project got a bit of a boost from all those redundant Avro Canada engineers
This is in fact quite true.
Allow me to bring to the attention of interested parties Chris Gainor's Arrows To The Moon, which carefully explores the contributions of former Avro science and engineering staff to the 1960s US space program.
Some of those Canadian expatriates also made significant contributions to Apollo's precursor, Gemini.
The CF-105 was a remarkable aircraft in the context of its time, and a tribute to its designers and fabricators. It is truly a shame that those who worked so hard on it never saw the Arrow enter service. However, let us pay honorable tribute to their efforts.
Several respondents here seem to have parsed this comment,
So which country was producing all those fantastic aicraft designs in the 1950's? They must have a really impressive aircraft industry by now...
as having been a slap. I don't know in what sense it was intended, but I for one reacted to it with sadness. There was a tremendous capability for innovative design and construction in the British aviation industry at the time in question, and much of that capability was squandered due to shortsighted industrial policy.
To me, at least, that loss is as much of a shame as was the premature cancellation of the Arrow. TSR2, for example, was a superb aircraft, killed by political mediocrities and tight budgets, and by the presumed overlap with the F-111 (which turned out to be largely unsuitable in what would have been the TSR2 niche).
Note as well that many British boffins who had worked on programmes and for employers in the UK during the 1950s and 1960s, and who then found their skills being neglected for political and economic reasons, then did as the Canadian Avro staff had done, and brought their talents to work in America on advanced systems -- to our very considerable national benefit at a time when the US was facing significant technical and military challenges from the Soviet Union. For which contributions they deserve our fervent gratitude.
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