The Avro Family

Ron D. Page:

He was born 1925 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He came to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with his family in 1931. They lived at 307 Second Ave. He attended Mutchmore, Glashan and Glebe Colligate schools. He returned to England with his family, as a teenager during the war in 1940 and joined the RAF via the Oxford University Short Course in 1942-43. He obtained his wings at No.5 British Flying Training School at Clewiston, Florida, USA, in early 1945. He was sent out to India at end of 1945, after a 3 week stint in the Fleet Air Arm. In India he flew Dakotas, Ansons and Harvards all around the continent and dropped supplies up in Assam in the Himalayan mountains at the junction of India, Tibet and China. He was able to get one ferry flight of 1,200 miles in a Spitfire whilst in India before being demobbed in 1947.

He obtained an Aeronautical degree at Loughborough University and at the same time joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force flying Spitfire 22s and then Gloster Meteor, the first jets, with No.504 City of Nottingham Squadron, flying out of Wymeswold. He gave up flying when he married Bette Sowerby because trying to be a front line pilot at the weekends and going to university and getting married something had to give.

On graduation in 1952 with first class honours at the top of his class, he worked for Bristol Engines at Filton on the Proteus and the first Olympus engines, on the turbine blade side of development. He and his wife and two children -Tim & Kim, emigrated to Canada in 1954 and worked for Orenda engines at Nobel, near Parry Sound, on development testing of components for the Iroquois engine. It was being developed for the Avro Arrow supersonic fighter program.

In January 1958, he was posted on attachment to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.(AECL) at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. They lived on Algonquin St. And later their own home at 8 Avon Crescent before finally moving to 40 Laurier. In September1959, he was asked to join Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to form Power Reactor Fuel Engineering. He was responsible for all the development of CANDU nuclear power reactor fuel. (NPD-2, Douglas Point, Indian RAPP I, Pickering A&B, Gentilly-1 BLW, Bruce A&B, Gentilly -2 600 Mwe reactors). In 1970 he moved to AECL Engineering Co., Sheridan Park near Toronto, Ont. to form a new branch of Fuel Engineering. Residing at 1351 Devon road. In 1980 he became the R & D program manager for all the combined AECL/Ontario Hydro R&D programs and later CANDU Owners Group (COG) R&D programs. He retired in January 1987 and his wife Bette retired a year later from Sheridan College. They moved from Oakville to Valleywood, Caledon in 1998. They have four children and are proud grandparents of seven grandsons & one granddaughter.

Ron became involved with aircraft again when he joined Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum (CWHM), Mount Hope, Hamilton in 1976-77 in the restoration of WW II aircraft to flying condition. He has produced a CD-ROM with Bill Brimley on Canadian Warplane Heritage New Museum and Aircraft Collection.

He has had four books published, AVRO ARROW co-author, 1st and 2nd editions over 85,000 copies, AVRO CANUCK - CF-100 Canada's All-weather Fighter, Booklet on CANADA'S FLYING MUSEUM, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum Aircraft Collection, 1st & 2nd editions and assisted his wife Bette in producing the MYNARSKI'S LANC, the story of two famous Canadian Lancaster bombers KB 726 & FM 213. A fourth book was published at the end of 1990 on the history of Fleet Aircraft Company of Canada titled `FLEET - THE FLYING YEARS', co-authored with Bill Cumming. His fifth book is with the publisher "The Story of Avro Canada and Orenda Engines and their Aircraft and Engines. 1938-2003" not yet published! He is presently working on the story of a Handley Page Halifax bomber which was recovered from a lake in Norway after 50 years and is now being restored at the RCAF Memorial Museum at Trenton, Ontario.

He was a Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, a Professional Engineer of Ontario, a director of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, a member of AECL CANDU Retirees Association, Federal Superannuates National Association and a member of CANDU Origins and Evolution working group.

Ron is working with AvroLand to post his latest book online - we will keep you posted as the work progresses