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Description
Zoersel (former) NATO reserve airfield, Belgium, August 20th 2016.

The CAC Boomerang was the first Australian-designed and Australian-built fighter plane. However, it had quite a weird genesis.

When the Pacific War broke out on December 8th 1941 (local time - December 7th 1941 in Hawaii), Australia found itself lacking the kind of air force necessary to oppose the advancing Japanese forces. With its frontline units fighting - and being lost - over Singapore with the hopelessly outdated Brewster Buffalo; and neither the UK nor US able to deliver the number of fighters required to build a credible home force, Australia found it had only one option left: to try and build a fighter design of its own, in the shortest time possible.

The task fell to the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation or CAC, which was already building aircraft designs for the Royal Australian Air Force: under license, it was building CAC (Bristol) Beaufort torpedo bombers; and a locally-produced and modified version of the North American NA-16 trainer, known as the CAC Wirraway.

While CAC tried to fulfill the immediate needs of the RAAF by adapting their Wirraway trainer into an interim two-seat fighter-bomber, CAC general manager Lawrence Wackett struck a coup by enlisting help from a recently-arrived refugee from Japan: Fred David, a Jewish engineer originally from Austria, who had worked at Heinkel on, among other designs, the Heinkel He 112 fighter and who, thanks to Ernst Heinkel's help, had escaped Hitler's grasp by being 'transferred' to Japan as a technical engineering representative for the Heinkel factories. Ironically, during his time in Japan, Fred David had aided the Japanese in designing and building the Mitsubishi A5M 'Claude' naval fighter, and the Aichi D3A 'Val' naval dive bomber; now Lawrence Wackett asked Fred David to help him design a fighter which would be used to fight against some of David's own earlier designs!

Using the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engine, already being built in license for the CAC license-built Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber; and basing itself on the overall frame and wing assembly of the CAC Wirraway trainer, Wackett and David designed a small, nimble and light fighter, the CAC Boomerang, which first flew on May 29th 1942. By this time, P-40 fighters were being imported into Australia in numbers, making the Boomerang program less urgent, but still the project progressed: by July 1942 the first Boomerang underwent testing with the RAAF; by October the first unit began training on the new design; and by April of the next year, the Boomerang had finally entered service.

Being reasonably heavily armed (2 20-mm cannons and 4 machine guns), the Boomerang packed quite a punch; however, by the time it had finally entered service, the Boomerang turned out to be lacking in speed and performance at altitude. As a result of this, the Boomerang never excelled in the task for which it was intended: while it succeeded in chasing away Japanese bomber raids, it never scored a single air-kill as a type!. Rather than as a fighter, as it had been intended, the Boomerang found considerable success as a ground attack and close support aircraft; also, Boomerangs were often used as 'target indicators', dropping markers onto ground targets so other types could attack them.

In the end, some 250 Boomerangs were built: 105 CA-12 Boomerang Mk.I's; 95 improved CA-13 Boomerang Mk.II's; 49 CA-19 Boomerang Mk.II reconnaissance aircraft; and a single CA-14 Boomerang with turbo-charged engine, the prototype for the "Super Boomerang" which eventually was never built.

In service, Boomerangs served alongside the Spitfire V and VIII, and the P-40 series; however they were soon replaced as soon as the P-51 started to enter RAAF service. The type was relegated to second-line tasks, and was dropped from the RAAF's inventory soon after the end of the War. Nowadays, a handful of Boomerangs exist, most restored from wartime wrecks.

CAC CA-13 Boomerang II A46-139 was originally built in September of 1943 and served with the RAAF's 83rd Squadron; it was damaged in a forced landing at Blackhall, Queensland on August 21st 1944. It was written off in May of 1946, and struck of charge in November of 1948.

The present-day A46-139 is a replica based on a standard North American T-6, which incorporates many original components of a number of Boomerangs. Built by Dennis Saunders and Dale Clarke, it resided in the United States for some considerable time, before it was sold to a European owner. It now resides at Antwerp International Airport, where it is based alongside a number of historical aircraft (T-6, T-28, P-51, Stampe SV-4, Hawker Fury, etc...)

Description
Zoersel (former) NATO reserve airfield, Belgium, August 20th 2016.

The CAC Boomerang was the first Australian-designed and Australian-built fighter plane. However, it had quite a weird genesis.

When the Pacific War broke out on December 8th 1941 (local time - December 7th 1941 in Hawaii), Australia found itself lacking the kind of air force necessary to oppose the advancing Japanese forces. With its frontline units fighting - and being lost - over Singapore with the hopelessly outdated Brewster Buffalo; and neither the UK nor US able to deliver the number of fighters required to build a credible home force, Australia found it had only one option left: to try and build a fighter design of its own, in the shortest time possible.

The task fell to the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation or CAC, which was already building aircraft designs for the Royal Australian Air Force: under license, it was building CAC (Bristol) Beaufort torpedo bombers; and a locally-produced and modified version of the North American NA-16 trainer, known as the CAC Wirraway.

While CAC tried to fulfill the immediate needs of the RAAF by adapting their Wirraway trainer into an interim two-seat fighter-bomber, CAC general manager Lawrence Wackett struck a coup by enlisting help from a recently-arrived refugee from Japan: Fred David, a Jewish engineer originally from Austria, who had worked at Heinkel on, among other designs, the Heinkel He 112 fighter and who, thanks to Ernst Heinkel's help, had escaped Hitler's grasp by being 'transferred' to Japan as a technical engineering representative for the Heinkel factories. Ironically, during his time in Japan, Fred David had aided the Japanese in designing and building the Mitsubishi A5M 'Claude' naval fighter, and the Aichi D3A 'Val' naval dive bomber; now Lawrence Wackett asked Fred David to help him design a fighter which would be used to fight against some of David's own earlier designs!

Using the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engine, already being built in license for the CAC license-built Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber; and basing itself on the overall frame and wing assembly of the CAC Wirraway trainer, Wackett and David designed a small, nimble and light fighter, the CAC Boomerang, which first flew on May 29th 1942. By this time, P-40 fighters were being imported into Australia in numbers, making the Boomerang program less urgent, but still the project progressed: by July 1942 the first Boomerang underwent testing with the RAAF; by October the first unit began training on the new design; and by April of the next year, the Boomerang had finally entered service.

Being reasonably heavily armed (2 20-mm cannons and 4 machine guns), the Boomerang packed quite a punch; however, by the time it had finally entered service, the Boomerang turned out to be lacking in speed and performance at altitude. As a result of this, the Boomerang never excelled in the task for which it was intended: while it succeeded in chasing away Japanese bomber raids, it never scored a single air-kill as a type!. Rather than as a fighter, as it had been intended, the Boomerang found considerable success as a ground attack and close support aircraft; also, Boomerangs were often used as 'target indicators', dropping markers onto ground targets so other types could attack them.

In the end, some 250 Boomerangs were built: 105 CA-12 Boomerang Mk.I's; 95 improved CA-13 Boomerang Mk.II's; 49 CA-19 Boomerang Mk.II reconnaissance aircraft; and a single CA-14 Boomerang with turbo-charged engine, the prototype for the "Super Boomerang" which eventually was never built.

In service, Boomerangs served alongside the Spitfire V and VIII, and the P-40 series; however they were soon replaced as soon as the P-51 started to enter RAAF service. The type was relegated to second-line tasks, and was dropped from the RAAF's inventory soon after the end of the War. Nowadays, a handful of Boomerangs exist, most restored from wartime wrecks.

CAC CA-13 Boomerang II A46-139 was originally built in September of 1943 and served with the RAAF's 83rd Squadron; it was damaged in a forced landing at Blackhall, Queensland on August 21st 1944. It was written off in May of 1946, and struck of charge in November of 1948.

The present-day A46-139 is a replica based on a standard North American T-6, which incorporates many original components of a number of Boomerangs. Built by Dennis Saunders and Dale Clarke, it resided in the United States for some considerable time, before it was sold to a European owner. It now resides at Antwerp International Airport, where it is based alongside a number of historical aircraft (T-6, T-28, P-51, Stampe SV-4, Hawker Fury, etc...)