The company was originally formed as National Steel Car Limited of Montreal, but when the Canadian Government took over the ownership and management of the Company in 1942, it was renamed Victory Aircraft Limited. During the Second World War, Victory Aircraft Limited was Canada’s largest aircraft manufacturer.
Victory Aircraft were one of a number of factories building British aircraft designs for the Royal Air Force, in relative safety, away from German air raids. They produced Avro Ansons, Handley Page Hampden bombers, Hawker Hurricane fighters and the Westland Lysander.
In 1945, the United Kingdom’s Hawker Siddeley Group purchased Victory Aircraft from the Canadian Government, and created A.V. Roe Canada, a wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary. Avro Canada, as it became known, started life repairing and servicing Second World War era aircraft types. However, the company also invested in research and development activities, working on potential jet engine designs, a jet-powered fighter and a commercial jet airliner programmes. Their first project was the development of the Orenda jet engine in 1949. This was followed by the Avro XC-100, Canada’s first jet fighter, which was renamed the CF-100 when it entered Royal Canadian Air Force service in 1952. A commercial jet airliner, the C-102 Jetliner, was also developed and first flew just 13 days after de Havilland’s Comet. However, orders were not forthcoming, only one prototype was built and the programme was eventually cancelled in 1951.
A.V. Roe Canada was re-structured in the mid-1950s and was split into two separate companies, Avro Aircraft Limited and Orenda Engines. During this period A.V. Roe Canada also acquired a number of other companies, including Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation, Canada Car and Foundry, and Canadian Steel Improvement. By 1958, A.V. Roe Canada had become an industrial giant, employing more than 50,000 people, generating annual sales of $450 million making it the third largest corporation in Canada.
In 1962, the Hawker Siddeley Group dissolved A.V. Roe Canada and transferred all the company’s assets into a new company, Hawker Siddeley Canada. The former aircraft factory was sold to de Havilland Canada in the same year. By the late 1990s Hawker Siddeley Canada had sold off almost all of its assets and had ceased trading.
