Avro Blue Steel nuclear missile ( front ) at the Midland Air Museum

Avro Blue Steel missile ( side view ) at the Midland Air Museum behind the wing of an Avro Vulcan bomber

Avro began work proper in 1955, with the assigned Rainbow Code name of " Blue Steel " which it would keep in service.

Avro proposed that Blue Steel would evolve over time, subsequent versions increasing speed ( to Mach 4. 5 ) and range.

The ultimate Blue Steel would be a range weapon that could be launched by the supersonic Avro 730 under development.

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The postwar Vulcan bombers, originally designed as a nuclear strike aircraft, were used to maintain the British nuclear deterrent, armed with the Avro Blue Steel stand-off nuclear bomb.

* Blue Steel missile – originally an Avro design.

National Steel Car had turned out Avro Anson trainers, Handley Page Hampden bombers, Hawker Hurricane fighters and Westland Lysander army cooperation aircraft.

Smye, born in Hamilton, Ontario, had risen through the ranks of the government's departments overseeing wartime aircraft production, to Assistant General Manager of Federal Aircraft Limited, the Crown Corporation managing production of the Avro Anson at the National Steel Car / Victory Aircraft plant.

Initially the major wartime contract to manufacture Avro Lancaster heavy bombers was to go to the National Steel Car Ltd. headquartered in Hamilton, utilizing the Malton, Ontario factory ( near today's Toronto Pearson International Airport ).

National Steel Car was already producing Westland Lysander aircraft and involved as a subcontractor in the manufacture of Hawker Hurricane fighters, Avro Anson trainers and Handley Page Hampden bombers.

It was later selected, with some controversy, to be the primary weapon for the Canadian Avro Arrow supersonic interceptor, along with the new Astra fire-control system.

The Avro Vulcan was part of the RAF V bomber force

The Ministry of Supply selected Avro out of the British manufacturers though it had no previous experience in working on guided weapons other than some private venture work ; Handley Page had suggested a missile but the Elliots gyro based guidance system was inaccurate beyond.

The project was delayed by the need to develop the stainless steel fabrication techniques ; this would have been gained in building the Avro 730 but that had been cancelled by then.

In addition, the pilots of the Avro Vulcan or Handley Page Victor bombers could tie their systems into those of the missile and make use of the guidance system to help plot their own flight plan, since the unit in the missile was more advanced than that in the aircraft.

It was not until the concluding months of 1943 that the only realized attempt to build a " true four engined " version of the A-series He 177, the He 177B emerged with only three airworthy prototypes produced by early 1944, some three years after the first flights of the Avro Lancaster prototypes, the most commonly encountered RAF bomber pounding Germany on strategic night raids from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.

Each B-52H was to carry four missiles, two under each wing on side-by-side pylons, while the Avro Vulcan carried one each on smaller pylons.

The Merlin was also used in the Avro Lancaster and de Havilland Mosquito bombers.

The Accountant was designed for 28 passengers and, like the more successful Avro 748, Handley Page Dart Herald, Fokker Friendship and YS-11, was powered by two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines.

At the time, ATL was competing in the DC-3 replacement market with Avro, Handley Page, Fokker and Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation ( NAMC ).

Avro was a British aircraft manufacturer, with numerous landmark designs such as the Avro 504 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.

Avro was founded on 1 January 1910 by Alliott Verdon Roe on at the Brownfield Mill on Great Ancoats Street in Manchester.

The company built the world's first totally enclosed monoplane in 1912, but it was the well-proportioned, wooden biplane known as the Avro 504 that kept the firm busy throughout the First World War and beyond.

The Tudor was a pressurised but problematic post-war Avro airliner that faced strong competition from designs by Bristol, Canadair, Douglas, Handley Page, and Lockheed.

The older Avro York was somewhat more successful in both the RAF and in commercial service, being distinguished by a fuselage square in cross-section.

A twin turboprop airliner, the Avro 748, was developed during the 1950s and sold widely across the globe, powered by two Rolls-Royce Dart engines.

Commonly known as Avro Canada, it was actually a subsidiary of the Hawker Siddeley Group and used the Avro name for trading purposes.

When the company was absorbed into Hawker Siddeley Aviation in July 1963, the Avro name ceased to be used.

But the brand had a strong heritage appeal, and the marketing name " Avro RJ " ( regional jet ) was used by British Aerospace for production of the RJ-85 and RJ-100 models of the BAe 146 from 1994 to 2001.

* 1947 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile.

* Avro 571 Buffalo, a 1920s prototype carrier-based British torpedo bomber

Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.

Air Chief Marshal Sir John Slessor believed that had the air force been forced to choose among the three British bombers under development in the late 1930s — the Avro Manchester, Short Stirling, and Handley Page Halifax — it would have chosen the wrong one.

* Avro Andover, a British military transport aircraft of the 1920s

* Avro Avian, a series of British light aircraft designed and built by Avro in the 1920s and 1930s

In 1943, the Brabazon Committee had laid down a set of civil aircraft transport types for the British aircraft industry to produce, but these were to be several years in coming, and particularly in the case of the tailwheel Avro Tudor, not what BOAC wanted.

The Halifax became the second most prolific British heavy bomber of the war after the Avro Lancaster ( essentially a four-engine development of the Manchester ).

The NZPAF acquired more modern British types including significant numbers of Airspeed Oxfords, Avro 626s, Fairey Gordons, Vickers Vildebeests and Blackburn Baffins — and small numbers of other types.

* 5 – 6 June, several RAF Avro Lancasters attempting to bomb the German artillery battery at Merville-Franceville-Plage attacked instead friendly positions, killing 186 soldiers of the British Reconnaissance Corps and devastating the town.

By the end of the Second World War in 1945, the " heavy " bomber, epitomized by the British Avro Lancaster and American B-32 used in the Pacific Theater, showed what could be accomplished by area bombing of Japan's cities and the often small and dispersed factories within them.

" of British aviation, comparable to the cancellation and destruction of the American Northrop Flying Wing bombers, and Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow interceptor that was scrapped in Canada in 1959.

** The British World War II aeroplane used by Winston Churchill, named after the lance — an Avro York

* April 29 – An Avro Vulcan bomber deploys to Ascension Island as part of the Falklands War build-up of British forces in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Seven British warships have borne the name in his honour, as well as the Avro Anson aircraft of the RAF.

The British Avro Type D was the first successful seaplane.