AVRO ENGINEERS AND NASA

IT IS GENERALLY WELL KNOWN that the ingenious CANADARM

manipulating device carried on all NASA Shuttle vehicles to launch and repair satellites and other spacecraft was designed and built in Canada by Spar Aerospace. The virtually faultless operation of the arm has been a major influence in the successful launch of a large number of important projects over fifteen years of Shuttle operations. However, less well known is Canada's tremendous contribution to the United States space programs in the pioneering days of the late '50s and throughout the '60s and early '70s when the single-man Mercury, the two-man Gemini, and the moon-land­ing Apollo projects were being developed.

The cancellation of the Avro Arrow supersonic fighter project on February 20, 1959, initiated the breakup of the extraordinarily talented team of engineers at Avro Canada, a team that had put Canada at the forefront of world aviation technology with the design and development of such projects as the C 102 Jetliner, the first jet passenger plane to fly in North America, the CF 100 all-weather fighter, and the legendary CF 105 Arrow.
In the meantime, the newly formed Space Task Group at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facility at Langley, Virginia, led by Robert Gilruth, former Assistant Director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was overloaded with urgent work on the Mercury space capsule design. At the time Gilruth was desperate to find experienced engineering personnel to develop the project. Gilruth had been involved in the wind tunnel and free-flight model testing of the Arrow models at Langley and the firing range on Wallops Island and was well aware of the unique capabilities of the Avro engineering team. He was quick to take advantage of their availability and made an arrangement with Avro to borrow a team of approximately 25 engineers to go to Langley and work on the development of Mercury.

The idea was to keep the ex-Avro engineers together as a team, with the intention of returning them when AVROsorted out the future of the company in the light of the Arrow cancellation.
On the later demise of Avro Canada, the loan became permanent and the Canadian engineers were integrated into the Space Task Group, later contributing to both the Gemini and Apollo projects.
At the time of the Arrow Cancellation, the Canadian team was led by the Chief of Design at Avro, Jim Chamberlin. His career pro­vides an example of the type of Canadian expertise made available to NASA at that time. Chamberlin was born in Kamloops, British Columbia, in 1915.

A graduate of the University of Toronto and a brilliant aerodynamicist at Avro Canada where he had been Chief of Design, Jim Chamberlin left Canada for the U.S. shortly after the cancellation of the Avro Arrow. Leading a team of some 25 gifted engineers to assist NASA in the development of the Mercury project, Chamberlin's departure initiated Canada's "brain drain." [Photo, courtesy Estate of James Chamberlin]

He and his mother came to Toronto after his father was killed in World War I. He attended the University of Toronto Schools at Bloor and Spadina and is remembered by his colleagues and family for being, in his younger days, obsessed with model airplanes which he designed and flew in rapid succession. He later graduated from the University of Toronto and also obtained a diploma from Imperial College in England. In the early 1940s he went as an aerodynamicist to work for Robert Noorduyn in Montreal. When A.V. Roe Canada (the parent company of Avro Canada) was established in 1945, he joined the engineering team as an aerodynamicist, later becoming head of the small initial project office and one of the senior designers at Avro. His work on the C 102 Jetliner, the first jet transport to fly in North America, the CF 100 fighter, and the supersonic Arrow was largely responsible for the remarkable flying characteristics of those aircraft. On his appointment as team leader of the Canadians at the Space Task Group at Langley, Virginia, Chamberlin became Gilruth's close advisor and played a major role in the final design of the Mercury capsule that put John Glenn into orbit on February 20th, 1962 -ironically just three years to the day after the abortive cancellation of Canada's Arrow project. He became head of engineering and administration on the Mercury project and later head of the U.S. Space Task Group's engineering division, directing the multi­million dollar two-man Gemini project and becoming deeply Canadian Jim Chamberlin played a major role in the final design of Mercury. This sketch of the Mercury spacecraft is the exact rendition of the one in which John Glenn orbited the earth on February 20, 1962 - just three years to the day after the Avro Arrow cancellation. [Photo, courtesy NASA via William Mellberg]