Orenda was originally a small government-owned business known as Turbo Research Limited (TRL) and was established by the National Research Council in 1944 to research gas turbine power. TRL had a cold-test laboratory in Winnipeg and a design office in Toronto (Leaside).
At the time, TRL already had a jet engine at the design stage but was faced with the decision of continuing the costly research or actually bringing everything to an end. Sir Roy Dobson offered to take over TRL and make it part of A.V. Roe Canada. His offer was accepted in 1946, just one year after A.V. Roe Canada was established. TRL was then moved to Malton.
At the end of hostilities in 1945, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) asked A.V. Roe Canada to start work on the design of a training plane as well as a twin-engine fighter that would be powered by the engine TRL had been working on.
By the following year, the RCAF revised its plans and wanted A.V. Roe Canada to concentrate on the twin-engine all-weather fighter aircraft. The engine TRL had been working on was known as the Chinook. Work continued and, by March 17, 1948, two weeks before the end of the government’s fiscal year, the Chinook was run on its test-bed. The run was critical since the work had been continuously threatened by government funding cuts.
The TR4 Chinook became the first engine built by Orenda and, in fact, was the first gas turbine engine completely developed in Canada.
The Turbo Research Limited (Orenda) Chinook TR4 was the first gas turbine engine to be completely designed and developed in Canada. Its first test-bed run was in March of 1948. On hand for the test-run were, from left to right, Walter Deisher, Vice President of A.V. Roe Canada, The Rt. Honourable C.D. Howe, Minister of Munitions (aka Minister of Everything) and Fred T. Smye, A.V. Roe Canada’s first employee and later President. Photo reproduction with permission of Magellan Aerospace Corporation.