James C. Floyd

James Charles "Jim" Floyd (born 20 October 1914) is a British-Canadian retired aeronautical engineer. He became the Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada) chief design engineer and his involvement, ultimately as vice-president (engineering), in the design and development of the Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner, Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck and Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow aircraft, occurred during a period which is viewed by many as the "Golden Age" of the Canadian aviation industry.

Early career
Floyd was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, on 20 October 1914. He began his career in the aviation industry in January 1930, at the age of 15, as an apprentice with A.V. Roe Company in the United Kingdom. Growing up next to the A.V. Roe manufacturing plant, he was chosen by Sir Roy Dobson, to take part in a scheme to train young boys in the aviation field. Floyd attended technical school and later graduated from UMIST in 1934, where he earned a diploma in engineering in 1945. As a part of his education, he also worked in a variety of different positions at the A.V. Roe plant, in between attending classes. He spent the last 6 months of this training at the A.V. Roe airfield at Woodford, where he learned to fly in a monoplane.

After graduating, Floyd joined Roy Chadwick’s group of designers and worked with Chadwick on the Avro Anson, Manchester, Lancaster, York and Lincoln designs. He was part of a small team that turned the twin-engined Manchester into the four-engined Lancaster bomber. He was later appointed Chief Project Engineer at the Avro design office in Yorkshire, working on the application of jet technology to transport aircraft. During his early career he worked under the guidance of Sir Sydney Camm of Hawker Aircraft, designer of the Hurricane Fighter and the Harrier 'jump jet'.

Avro Canada


Floyd moved to Canada to join the new A.V. Roe Canada, known as Avro Canada, in 1946, and, in 1952, he was named Chief Engineer. He worked on such aircraft as the C102 Avro Jetliner, CF-100 Canuck jet fighter, and CF-105 Avro Arrow supersonic interceptor. Floyd's work on jet transport in the United Kingdom led to the Avro Canada C102 Jetliner. The Jetliner had been designed for a Trans Canada Airlines (TCA) requirement in 1946. Despite being the first jet-powered airliner in North America, and the second to fly worldwide, the Jetliner never went into production. When the Canadian government insisted that Avro concentrate on its jet engine and CF-100 designs, Floyd was named as Project Designer for the CF-100 in 1952.

Like thousands of other Avro Canada employees, Floyd was laid off in the wake of the Avro CF-105 Arrow/Orenda Iroquois engine cancellation of 20 February 1959, "Black Friday." After securing positions in other companies for many of the engineers in his department, Floyd and his family moved back to England in 1959. He headed up Hawker Siddeley's Advanced Projects Group that developed the HSA.1000 SST design evaluated as part of a joint research study with Bristol whose design ultimately became the Concorde. Floyd later worked as a consultant from 1965 to 1972.

Honours
In 1950, Floyd was awarded the Wright Brothers Medal from the Society of Automotive Engineers for his paper on the Jetliner (the first non-American recipient); in 1993, he was inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame and named a Companion of the Order of Flight by the City of Edmonton. Floyd also was awarded the J.A. McCurdy trophy in 1958 for his work on the Avro Arrow. In May 2000, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering Design by the Royal Military College of Canada.



On 20 July 2009, Floyd was awarded the first Canadian Air and Space Pioneer Award in a ceremony at the former Canadian Air and Space Museum at Downsview Park, Toronto, Canada.

Later life
Since his retirement in 1979, Floyd has devoted free time to a number of educational and youth-oriented projects. Floyd and his family returned to Canada in 1981. In 2014 his wife, Irene, died after 74 years of marriage, and he celebrated his 100th birthday on 20 October.