The Velvet Glove was a short-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile designed by CARDE (today DRDC Valcartier) and produced by Canadair starting in 1953.
Small scale work on what would become the Velvet Glove started in 1948 at CARDE, and by 1951 the plans were advanced enough to put forth the design as armament on the Avro CF-100 "Canuck" fighter that was then entering service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
[3] By this point the Arrow was slated to replace the CF-100 within a few years, and the RCAF had always demanded that it fire the much more advanced active-radar Sparrow II missile under design for the United States Navy.
Development had cost a total of $24 million (equivalent to $270,000,000 in 2023) which the Department of National Defence attempted to justify as money well spent on the training of the specialists involved in the project.
Options for the Arrow were studied, including taking over the Sparrow II program at Canadair, turning to the Falcon/rocket mix being used by contemporary United States Air Force interceptors, or restarting the Velvet Glove project.
There were concerns that the Velvet Glove would be difficult to launch at supersonic speeds and therefore representing a risk to the aircraft, likely due to its small control surfaces not having enough authority.