The quality and workmanship of the Canadian-built Lancaster Mark X’s prompted Sir Roy Dobson, the managing director of A.V. Roe Manchester and the man behind the Lancaster bomber, along with Sir Frank Spriggs, managing director of Hawker Siddeley, to pay a visit to Malton to inspect the Canadian government-owned Victory Aircraft plant in 1943.
They arrived not long after the first Canadian-built Lancaster, the Ruhr Express, had been delivered and test flown in Manchester.
It was in Manchester that the A.V.Roe chief inspector had remarked “that’s how an aircraft should be built” and this no doubt prompted the visit by the two high ranking executives of the English aircraft industry.
The purpose of their visit was to check out aircraft production at the Canadian Crown Corporation, where superior Lancasters were being built in a country that had virtually no previous experience or history in building warplanes en masse.
Fred T. Smye
They were met by Fred T. Smye, director of aircraft production at Victory, and escorted across Ontario to existing aircraft companies. It was during the tour that Sir Dobson hinted that he thought Canadians should have their own self-sufficient aircraft industry. Fred Smye knew the Canadian government was anxious to step away from the aircraft industry once the war was over and, seizing the idea, promoted it vigorously.
By early summer of 1945, the war in Europe had come to an end. Sir Roy Dobson finalized plans with C.D. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply and signed an agreement the week of July, 26, 1945. Hawker Siddeley would operate Victory Aircraft on a rental-purchase plan. Contracts for the manufacturer of Lincolns and Lancaster aircraft were then signed.
The fledgling company no sooner hired Fred Thomas Smye, who had resigned from his position with the Ministry and moved into his new office at Victory on August 1, 1945, when it found itself with a major crisis. The war in Japan ended and the Liberal government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent cancelled all contracts for the Lancaster and Lincoln aircraft production.