The Arrow (TV 1997)

The true story of how Canada built and destroyed the world's most advanced fighter plane back in the 1950s.

Director:

Don McBrearty

Writer:

Keith Ross Leckie

Stars:

Dan Aykroyd, Sara Botsford, Ron White

9 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dan Aykroyd	...	Crawford Gordon
Sara Botsford	...	Kate O'Hara
Ron White	...	Jack Woodman
Aidan Devine	...	Jim Chamberlin
Nigel Bennett	...	James (Jim) Floyd
Jonathan Whittaker	...	Fred Smye
Ian D. Clark	...	Edward Critchley
David Brown	...	Joe Paloffski (as Dave Brown)
Catherine Fitch	...	Ruby Paloffski
Robin Gammell	...	C.D. Howe
Robert Haley	...	John George Diefenbaker
Michael Moriarty	...	President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Michael Ironside	...	CIA Director
Christopher Plummer	...	George Hees
Mauralea Austin	...	June Callwood

Storyline

This series tells the story of the world's fastest fighter plane ever built, in 1950's Canada, and how the project was dropped due to political pressure from the United States.

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Plot Keywords:

canada | cold war | sound barrier | aviation | sputnik | 

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Taglines:

The right stuff. The wrong time.

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Genres:

Drama | History

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Details

Country:

Canada

Language:

French English

Release Date:

12 January 1997 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Gyorsan, mint a nyíl

Filming Locations:

Gimli, Manitoba, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$7,800,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Film Works, The, John Aaron Productions, Manitoba Film & Sound Development Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

180 min

Color:

Black and White Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

To make the Avro Arrow fly they filmed radio controlled models of the Arrow from a helicopter.

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Goofs

Jim Chamberlain is depicted, in 1957, as having discovered the area-rule or "coke-bottle" shape for reducing compressibility during trans-sonic flight. The concept was in fact discovered by Richard Whitcomb at the Langely Research Center for which he received the 1954 Collier Award. The technical details were made public in 1955 and the F-102, F-104 and F-105 were already in service with this design. The wind-tunnel at Langely was able to allow Mach 2 testing of the Arrow because it too was using an area rule cross-section.

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Connections

Featured in The Greatest Canadian (2004)

User Reviews

A real feel good Canadian movie.

The Arrow is a very dramatized version of the happenings around the Avro project.

The Arrow is a real feel good movie for us Canadians. Though Dan Aykroyd has had better days, it's important that he was included in the Canadian cast, bringing a familiar face to a long forgotten subject.

Just recently an original Avro Arrow model airplane was found in Lake Ontario.