diff --git a/External/AvalonTools/CMakeLists.txt b/External/AvalonTools/CMakeLists.txt
index 65e34be2d..b2d726866 100755
--- a/External/AvalonTools/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/External/AvalonTools/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -20,6 +20,15 @@ if(needDownload)
   execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E tar xf
     ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/AvalonToolkit_1.2.0.source.tar
     WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR})
+  # CMake < 2.8.10 does not seem to support HTTPS out of the box
+  # and since SourceForge redirects to HTTPS, the CMake download fails
+  # so we try to use system curl if available, using -L to follow redirects
+  if (NOT EXISTS "${fileToPatch}")
+    execute_process(COMMAND curl -L -O "${AVALONTOOLS_URL}" WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR})
+    execute_process(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E tar xf
+      ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/AvalonToolkit_1.2.0.source.tar
+      WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR})
+  endif()
   # apply patch to AvalonTools
   configure_file("${fileToPatch}" "${fileToPatch}.orig" COPYONLY)
   file(READ "${fileToPatch}" buffer)