Frederick Thomas Smye (August 6, 1916 – 1985) was a Canadian businessman. He was the president of Avro Aircraft Limited (Canada).
He was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the son of Frederick Thomas Smye and Maude Givern, and was educated at Trinity College in Port Hope. In 1939, he married Dorothy Jean Carswell. Smye first worked with the Canadian aircraft industry during World War II in 1940 as an official in the New York, Washington and Ottawa offices of the Department of Munitions and Supply, eventually becoming Director of Aircraft Production. In 1944 he was appointed Assistant General Manager of Federal Aircraft Limited in Montreal to wind up the Canadian Government's aircraft production program. At the close of the war he played a key role in establishing the British Hawker Siddeley Group in Canada through the formation of A.V. Roe Canada Limited. On August 1, 1945, Smye became the first employee of A.V. Roe Canada established in the former Victory Aircraft facilities at Malton, Ontario. With the official formation of Avro Aircraft on December 1, 1945, he was appointed Assistant General Manager. He was a lead administrator of all the major Avro projects: the Jetliner, the CF-100, the Orenda engines to power it, and the Arrow supersonic interceptor. He held various A. V. Roe Canada positions including President of Avro Aircraft, Executive Vice-President (aeronautical) and Board Member of several A. V. Roe subsidiaries.
After the cancellation of the Arrow by the Diefenbaker government in 1959, Smye resigned from A. V. Roe in 1960 and in 1963 purchased Canadian Ofrex Limited, running the company as President until selling it in 1972. He emigrated to the Algarve in Portugal in 1973 where lived until he died of cancer in December 1985.
Avro was a British aircraft manufacturer. Its designs include the Avro 504, used as a trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the delta wing Avro Vulcan, a stalwart of the Cold War.
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding 50,000 feet (15,000 m) and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) primary interceptor into the 1960s and beyond.
Avro Canada was a Canadian aircraft manufacturing company. It was founded in 1945 as an aircraft plant and within 13 years became the third-largest company in Canada, one of the largest 100 companies in the world, and directly employing over 50,000. Avro Canada was best known for the CF-105 Arrow, but through growth and acquisition, it rapidly became a major, integrated company that had diverse holdings.
Hawker Siddeley was a group of British manufacturing companies engaged in aircraft production. Hawker Siddeley combined the legacies of several British aircraft manufacturers, emerging through a series of mergers and acquisitions as one of only two such major British companies in the 1960s. In 1977, Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace (BAe). Hawker Siddeley also operated in other industrial markets, such as locomotive building and diesel engine manufacture. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
The Avro Canada C102 Jetliner was a Canadian prototype medium-range turbojet-powered jet airliner built by Avro Canada in 1949. It was beaten to the air by only 13 days by the de Havilland Comet, thereby becoming the second jet airliner in the world. The name "Jetliner" was chosen as a shortening of the term "jet airliner", a term which is still in popular usage. The aircraft was considered suitable for busy routes along the US eastern seaboard and garnered intense interest, notably from Howard Hughes who even offered to start production under license. However, continued delays in Avro Canada's all-weather interceptor project, the CF-100 Canuck, led to an order to stop working on the project in 1951, with the prototype Jetliner later cut up for scrap.
Janusz Żurakowski was a Polish fighter and test pilot. At various times in his life he lived and worked in Poland, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
The Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck is a Canadian twinjet interceptor/fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Avro Canada. It has the distinction of being the only Canadian-designed fighter to enter mass production.
Victory Aircraft Limited was a Canadian manufacturing company that, during the Second World War, built mainly British-designed aircraft under licence. It acted as a shadow factory, safe from the reach of German bombers.
Crawford Gordon Jr. was a leader of wartime defence production in Canada under Minister of Munitions and Supply C.D. Howe during the Second World War. He was perhaps one of the greatest industrialists and business minds in Canadian history; Gordon bought two companies and held one CEO position, but eventually lost it all.
The Arrow is a four-hour television miniseries produced for CBC Television in 1997, starring Dan Aykroyd as Crawford Gordon, experienced wartime production leader after World War II and president of Avro Canada during its attempt to produce the Avro Arrow supersonic jet interceptor aircraft. The film also stars Michael Ironside and Sara Botsford. The mini-series is noted as having the highest viewership ever for a CBC program.
Orenda Engines was a Canadian aircraft engine manufacturer and parts supplier. As part of the earlier Avro Canada conglomerate, which became Hawker Siddeley Canada, they produced a number of military jet engines from the 1950s through the 1970s, and were Canada's primary engine supplier and repair company.
Thomas Leonard "Tom" Wells was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party from 1963 to 1985 and was a cabinet minister in the governments of John Robarts and William Davis. There is also a school in Scarborough, Ontario named after him.
James Arthur Chamberlin was a Canadian engineer who contributed to the design of the Canadian Avro Arrow, NASA's Gemini spacecraft and the Apollo program. In addition to his pioneering air and space efforts, he is often cited as an example of Canadian brain drain to the U.S. In the early 1960s, he was one of the key people that proposed and moved that Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) was the best option for landing a crew on the Moon, the method eventually used on Apollo lunar landing missions. He left NASA in 1970 and worked for McDonnell Douglas, in their Houston offices, until his death in 1981.
James Charles Floyd is a British-Canadian retired aeronautical engineer. He became the Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada) chief design engineer and his involvement, ultimately as vice-president (engineering), in the design and development of the Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner, Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck and Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow aircraft, occurred during a period which is viewed by many as the "Golden Age" of the Canadian aviation industry.
Frederick Thomas Smye was an Ontario political figure. He represented Hamilton West in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1926 to 1930 as a Conservative member.
John Paris Bickell, also known as Jack Bickell, was a Canadian businessman, philanthropist, and sports team owner. He is best known for his long-time association with the Toronto Maple Leafs professional ice hockey team as the owner, president, chairman and director 1924–1951.
The Aerospace Heritage Foundation of Canada is a federally chartered and non-profit organization based in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, that is dedicated to preserving and promoting the achievements of the Canadian aerospace industry.
The Avro Canada CF-103 was a proposed Canadian interceptor, designed by Avro Canada in the early 1950s as a development, and possible replacement of the company's CF-100 Canuck, that was entering service at the time with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). Although intended to be capable of flying at transonic speeds, the CF-103 only offered a moderate increase in performance and capability over the CF-100; subsequently, the aircraft never progressed beyond the mock-up stage.
Owen Eugene Maynard was a Canadian engineer who contributed to the designs of the Canadian CF-105 Avro Arrow jet interceptor, and of NASA's Apollo Lunar Module (LM). Maynard was a member of the group of 32 Canadian and British engineers from Avro Canada who joined NASA when the Arrow was cancelled in 1959. Maynard worked on Project Mercury until 1960 and then moved to the Apollo program. Maynard won a U.S. patent (US3300162) in 1967 for a space station design.
Tecwyn Roberts was a Welsh spaceflight engineer who in the 1960s played important roles in designing the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and creating NASA's worldwide tracking and communications network.