When times are hard, it takes considerable self-belief to abandon employment with an established aircraft producer to set up in business to create a new aircraft for which no likely customer, either military or civilian, has implied a need. It would take a brave man indeed, particularly so at the start of the 1930s when the world had been plunged into a Depression that showed no sign of easing. Arthur Thornton had worked at the Blackburn Aeroplane & Motor Company, a~id designed the all-metal Blackburn Bluebird single engined, twin-seat biplane light trainer/private touring aircraft in 1924 and also the Uncock single seat lightweight fighter aircraft in 1928. Thornton was convinced of a market for an advanced aerobatic aircraft that could also be used as a fighter trainer and for bombing training. So he left Blackburn in early 1930 to form Arrow Aircraft (Leeds) Ltd. where he set to work with associate Sidney Oddy to produce their first aircraft, a diminutive sequiplane type, with rearward, manually folding wings and Cirrus-Hermes IIB inverted inline engine.
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