mark_pilkingtonDavid,
Some clues for your assistance.
1. Flight Logs? , try CASA and Brisbane Airport Corporation as the custodians of the original Southern Cross (perhaps they are stored as part of the “Southern Cross” Kingsford Smith Memorial? or alternatively try the Brisbane/Queensland State Museum or Sydney Powerhouse Museum as these two state government Museums are the other most likely repositories.
2. The “New” Bus was badly damaged in a landing accident (gear failure) with significant wing damage, the South Australain government has pledged funding to rebuild it, and HARS been appointed as the restorer and future operator and has now established a division in SA based aronud the original volunteers who built and maintained the a/c.
3. A Thousand Skies, was a tele-series not a motion picture so I dont think its ever been formally released on tape, and I think its more likely private individuals tv recordings will be the best/only source of copies, I will make some enquiries here in Melbourne.
regards
Mark P
mark_pilkington… and one more from downunder,
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkington…..why is it so??
and when that one is answered…….. I would like to know “why” the water spirals down the plug hole clockwise in one hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the other?
(ponders? “maybe it the same cause for both piston engines and plug holes”) :confused:
…..sorry I couldnt resist :p
Mark Pilkington :rolleyes:
mark_pilkingtonCAC’s achievements should not simply be dismissed as adopting the P51 wing or simply putting an Avon Engine into the Sabre, and the depth of those design and manufacturing achievements can only be fully understood when seen in the context of “colonial” Australia and the cultural cringe it suffered in the shadow of the Mother country, certainly pre-war, but also early post war.
Wackett in the RAAF experimental station and later at CAC, and indeed Williams in the RAAF, suffered both local political and media surrender to the view heavily promoted by the Society of British Manufacturers that Australia could not possibly design and manufacture aricraft locally and instead should rely on british production.
The DC-2 performance in the 1934 air-race closed the door on bi-plane streamlined wood and fabric designs, despite an excellent and thorough development to its fullest extent by DH, and highlighted the gap between the UK and other countries in stressed skin construction techniques, the same was obvious to Australians when comparing the Scheduled airline flight of the DC-2 in the race to the winning purpose built DH88 Comet, or the NZ entered DH-89 Rapide.
This was later confirmed by Wacketts inspection of pre-war production facilities in UK and Germany, and later in the US.
When RAF AM Salmond inspected the RAAF in 1938 he refused to witness a demonstration of the first Wirraway because it was not British, and believed Australia should have waited for a british design, yet before he had returned to England the UK itself had ordered its own Harvard I’s along with Hudsons.
Australia did not have access to siginifant UK and US expertise as suggested, in fact even when Australia secured the licence production of the Beaufort, the drawings and jigs provided were deficient.
The CA-15 extended from the CA-14 Boomerang developments and in its first form could be considered a redesign of the Boomerang to engineer out the inadequacies of the Wirraway components such as steel tube fuselage, old Northrup designed 3 piece wing etc.
The early concept drawings of the CA-15 are actually more like a radial engine Spitful, and later influenced by the P-47, and it was only the lack of access of radial engines for production that resulted in the inline installation of the Griffon and the resultant dogbox radiator obviously has some P-51 influence, but to argue the Ca-15 is simply a P-51 derivative is to ignore the basic facts that the preliminary design occurred in June 42 – Jul 43 with various evolutions based on the R2800 installation through July 43 to August 44, and the Griffon re-engineering to inline commencing in September 44 to first flight in March 46.
CAC access to P-51 data commenced in January 43 with a RAAF evaluation trip to review the Spitfire, Thunderbolt and Mustang for local manufacture, the first American jigs and kits for assembly by CAC ahead of local production where not in Australia until early 1945, and they were preceeded into service by RAAF operational access to US made Mustangs in Australia in April 1945.
The CA-15 Wing is Laminar flow and introduced obviously in response to the P-51’s success but structurally the two arcraft have little in common, the CA-15 is larger in most dimensions, the fuselage is radically diffferent in shape and its design inheritance from the R2800 installation is obvious when both engine layouts are viewed together.
The CA-15 is the ultimate expression of CAC and Australia’s ability to create an aircraft manufacturing industry, not with support, but despite the active attempts to thwart it, inthe face of invasion and supply lines being cut from both the UK and USA.
The CA-27 Sabre is a lot more than a simple engine conversion in a modular aircraft design, the Avon Engine exceeded the F86 engine intake air volume capacity, and required the entire fuselage to be re-engineered to be larger, the installation of the two 40 mm cannons resulted in further relocation of fuselage systems, this was done without any major US support other the licence build support of the original design – wings etc. However the story is again more complicated by the return to a pro- british aircraft focus politically that nearly saw the RAAF adopting a Hawker design the P1081 that is yet to ever fly.
Australia’s aircraft production is a story to be proud of, the early involvement with DH and Avro, the struggle of local designs and wartime production, the post war licence production of british and US designs, the local designs that made it (Victa) and those that didnt!
Many famous world wide names are no longer with us, Avro, Hawker, Blackburn, DH, Curtiss, Lockheed, Douglas, and many were infulenced by the latest success of their contemporaries, and their wartime adversaries, CAC is a unique contribution from Australia that we are proud of.
Its fair to say the CA-15’s prototype performance was on an unarmed basis and not significantly better than Sea Fury, Bearcat etc, the remarkable thing is that it is the prototype performance and without enhancements, what it could have been – who knows, maybe an operational flop, but it is still a remarkable acheivement from a company that in February 1940 had built 45 aircraft and 50 engines, and by the start of 1945 built 1200 aircraft, including two prototype designs.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonNA-16- Wirraways, Harvards T6 and SNJ’s
Wirraways NA-16s, T6/SNJ & Harvards are all part of the successful North American NA-16 family of trainers.
The North American Trainer model numbers and Contract numbers become quite confusing, the following is based on the WARBIRDTECH series NA-16/AT-6/SNJ
The Wirraway is a direct NA-16 derivative with the distinctive all steel tube/fabric covered fuselage and straight trailing edge wing (The NA-32 and NA-33 were “contract” numbers as well as “model” numbers), The Contract numbers primarily related to the customer order, CAC received contract numbers 32 (actually an NA-16-1A with fixed gear and 2 blade prop), and contract number 33 (actually an NA-16-2k with retract gear and 3 blade prop and geared 1340).
The Harvard 1 is also an NA-16 derivative (NA-49 actually an NA-16-1E) while the Yale, NJ-1, SNJ-2 and BC-1 are themselves all seperate branch off derivatives of the NA-16 developments with various combinations of tapered wing, straight wing trailing edges, monocoque and steel tube rear fuselages.
The NA-16 design evolved further from the BC-1 (NA-26) and BT-9 (NA-29) family of T6 Ancestors with differing engine sizes, The NA-16 model references cease at the Contract number NA-56 which is an AN-16-4 and the BC-1A (NA-55), Yale (NA-57) and BT-14 (NA-58) at last started to bring together the monocoque fuselage and tapered wing and adoption of the ungeared P&W 1340 Wasp engine.
AT6 as contract number NA-59 commences the new T6/Harvard/SNJ family derivatives and leads on to the SNJ-2 as contract NA-65, Harvard 11 as contract number NA-66.
Finally the definative AT6A/SNJ-3 emerge as contract NA-77, with a multitude of contract numbers applying to the following T6-C,D,F and G, SNJ-4,5,6 and Harvard 111 and 1V models but are all effectively the same basic airframe structure of monocoque fuselage and tapered wing, hidden inside them all is the steel tube front fuselage frame derived from the basic NA-16.
regarding the posts above regarding Harvard II and IIA differences, the Harvard II (NA-66) was built by North American and “was effectively a BC-1A fitted with british equipment and circular control column”(T6 in Action – signal publications), whereas the Mk IIA were lend lease T6-C’s (NA-88), explaining the US cockpit configurations.
The Harvard IIB were built in Canada by Noordyun and was similar to the NA built Harvard II above (but given no NA contract number).
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonI have seen asbestos sandwiched between two aluminium skins in both a mark V spitfire firewall and and on Anson mark 1 firewalls, but I have not seen it used in the same place on US designs of the same period, so I assume this was a uniquelly UK design strategy perhaps adopted in the late 30’s by particular UK manufacturers like Avro and Supermarine or alternatively required via RAF specification? to lengthen the withstand of an engine fire?
mark_pilkingtonwas the mini-series “A Thousand skies”?
mark_pilkingtonwelcome Matt,
nice pic, and a wirraway project can take up a big part of anyones life, but dont worry Wirraway-itus is not terminal, you can recover from it! or at least live with it 😀
or you can always look for something with a simpler engine, fixed gear, no hydraulics in the flaps, wooden wing…… 😉 (but then maybe harder to find servicable parts)
or maybe an Auster arggghhhhhh!!! 😮
regards
Mark P
mark_pilkingtonWombat/JDK,
1. Wirraways NA-16s, T6/SNJ & Harvards
The North American Trainer model numbers and Contract numbers become quite confusing, the following is based on the WARBIRDTECH series NA-16/AT-6/SNJ
The Wirraway is a direct NA-16 derivative with the distinctive all steel tube/fabric covered fuselage and straight trailing edge wing (The NA-32 and NA-33 were “contract” numbers as well as “model” numbers), The Contract numbers primarily related to the customer order, CAC received contract numbers 32 (actually an NA-16-1A with fixed gear and 2 blade prop), and contract number 33 (actually an NA-16-2k with retract gear and 3 blade prop and geared 1340).
The Harvard 1 is also an NA-16 derivative (NA-49 actually an NA-16-1E) while the Yale, NJ-1, SNJ-2 and BC-1 are themselves all seperate branch off derivatives of the NA-16 developments with various combinations of tapered wing, straight wing trailing edges, monocoque and steel tube rear fuselages.
The NA-16 design evolved further from the BC-1 (NA-26) and BT-9 (NA-29) family of T6 Ancestors with differing engine sizes, The NA-16 model references cease at the Contract number NA-56 which is an AN-16-4 and the BC-1A (NA-55), Yale (NA-57) and BT-14 (NA-58) at last started to bring together the monocoque fuselage and tapered wing and adoption of the ungeared P&W 1340 Wasp engine.
AT6 as contract number NA-59 commences the new T6/Harvard/SNJ family derivatives and leads on to the SNJ-2 as contract NA-65, Harvard 11 as contract number NA-66.
Finally the definative AT6A/SNJ-3 emerge as contract NA-77, with a multitude of contract numbers applying to the following T6-C,D,F and G, SNJ-4,5,6 and Harvard 111 and 1V models but are all effectively the same basic airframe structure of monocoque fuselage and tapered wing, hidden inside them all is the steel tube front fuselage frame derived from the basic NA-16.
2. APC, DAP and GAF
Stewart Wilson’s ‘Beaufort/Beaufighter and Mosquito” details the development of joint production of a “bomber” for RAF/RAAF service from 1938 resulting in the creation of the Aircraft Construction Branch (ACB) of the Dept of Supply and Development in July 1939, and in March 1940 the ACB became the Australian Production Commission (APC – still under the dept of Supply and Development).
In June 1941 APC was abolished and the Beaufort Division of the Department of Production was created.
Wilson’s “Lincoln, Canberra & F111” refers to the Beaufort Division of DAP proposing the Lincoln and Tudor production in Australia in July 1945, but refers to GAF from @1950 onwards.
Sir Lawrence Wackett’s autobiography “Aircraft Pioneer” (“father” of CAC) provides an excellent detail of the drama behind the demise of the APC. Apparantly as a method to get the Beaufort production back on timeline and underway, the APC Chairman and others atttempted to forceably “Nationalise” the CAC facilities to produce the “bomber” as it was a more strategic project than the Wirraway and other CAC projects. Apparantly CAC’s Board visited with the Prime Minister over the matter and passed the APC board who were also called up to see the PM in their aircraft, in the air on the return flight to Melbourne. Wackett describes rising the next morning to discover their visit had resulted in the APC Board being dismissed and the APC abolished and replaced by new people and the Beaufort Division/DAP as described in the Newspaper.
Wackett’s biography also provides an interesting insight into the colonial environment of the 1930’s with the prohibition on imports of US made aircraft and the activities of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors to discourage local Australian production to maintain colonial markets, and then to actively undermine CAC’s creation and production of an “American” aircraft.
Sir Dickie Williams (AM RAAF) autobiography (“father” of the RAAF), also discusses similar activities within the services arena to discourage the Cockatoo Island Experimental Section, and to question the “American” Wirraway production choice.
mark_pilkingtonIn addition to the list of UK designs built in Australia provided above by Wombat,
there were:
DeHavillands
DH Dragons built for RAAF during 1940’s
DH Moth Minors built/completed/assembled for RAAF during 1940’s
(I understand the UK production jigs etc for these two types were transferred to Aust)
DH 115 Vampires 1950’s
Government Aircraft Factories GAF
(previously APC and DAP – Dept of aircraft Production)
Canberra 1950’s
and prior to the 1940’s some small production occured:
AFC Point Cook
Bristol Boxkite 1914 (1)
AAOC
Avro 504k’s 1920’s
Larkins
DH-60’s 1930’s
Dept of Munitions
DH-60’s 1930’s
QANTAS
DH-50’s 1930’s
mark_pilkingtonThe base plate and folded aluminium construction is pure Anson Mark 1 aerial, when compared to one I have, but there does appear to be a modification to the top of yours as referred to above by 682al.
mark_pilkingtonFolks,
FYI In regard to David Homewoods questions at the end of his Hudson post of 6 July above on the where-abouts of Charles Derby’s “Beaufort, P40 and P39” recovered to NZ from Tadji,
the Beaufort is owned by Monty Armstrong and on display at the Museum of Army Aviation at Oakey Qld Aust,
the P40 is now flying with Charles Darby in NZ
the P39 was also owned by Monty Armstrong and spent some time at Airworld Wangarratta but is now about to be assembled ariworthy at the Legends show in the UK, as reported elsewhere on this forum as it was/is “Brooklyn Bum 2nd”, and there is an as-found pic of it in that post.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonFolks,
the 1971 “long Load” image of the “Warbirds Mob” in Mark12’s post above is the same Hudson shown in Mark12’s later post of the Lockheed “something” at Bob Eastgates Hangar at Point Cook in 1992.
This is the fuselage remains of Mark 1 Hudson A16-22 that was recovered by Pearce Dunn, later purchased and used by Malcolm Long as a pattern for the turret installation and other military equipment in A16-112 (flying A/C), and then later passed on to Bob Eastgate to assist in the restoration of A16-122, which have both been subsequently traded to the RAAF Museum.
A16-122 was the “faded blue civil scheme” a/c that Mark refers to being inside the hangar.
The other 1971 image is correctly identified as a Ventura fuselage, but I believe the Gove example shown here with the Beaufort fuselage is a different aircraft to the Ventura fuselage on display at the Queensland Air Museum which is A59-96 referred to by Setter.
I believe the Gove example is A59-73 and currently under restoration in Darwin for return to Gove.
For JDK’s cockpit question –
The Cockpit looks like Malcolm Longs aircraft but from inside the Bellman Hangar on the Southern Tarmac at Point Cook – I had the pleasure of a gorund run taxi in the aircraft once, but then again I guess all Hudson cockpits look the same – smiles
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonHudsons in Australia
Given the important role played in the early part of the pacific war with the RAAF we are fortunate in Australia to have 4 survivors consisting of the flying example at the Temora Museum, a restored static example in storage for the Australian War Memorial (both former restorations of Malcolm Long), and an unrestored static example in storage for the RAAF Museum, unlong with a fuselage.
All, other than the RAAF Museum fuselage (Mark 1), are Mark III/IV and survived the war with Adastra Airways in service with the former Strathallen Hudson now in the RAF Museum.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonI am member (and web manager), but not a councillor, of the AARG, who own the aircraft, so I am unable to speak on behalf of the organisation.
But given the internal past battle over the intended disposal of the aircraft and the subsequent heritage listing and export ban of it as the prime intact example of an Australian built Mk21, (the only other one existing here is already fitted with Bristol Freighter engines) I would expect there is little chance that the group would ever consider swapping the engines for static examples, and certainly the engine runs in the open were traded for the security and protection under cover in the building, but the current situation doesnt permanently preclude future engine runs as the Museum building program extends and modifies the current display.
I’m not sure that position stops the current ‘airworthy” projects from proceeding successfully, and probably on the basis of Freighter engines as the AARG engines would need to be more than “runable”, they would need to be in tolerance for flying operations and supported by operational spares, pistons/rings/cylinders etc, all problems when the engines are so hard to find in any condition, whereas there are still a number of Freighter engines about –
However I do understand that may complicate prop options, but again as exampled by the AARG’s own situation originals arnt plentiful either.
I know its a constant battle between the security of an example for posterity on the ground, and the desire to see these aircraft in their natural element, unfortunately when you get down to the last 10 examples world wide, parts become scarce for both endeavours, but in some cases compromises on the accuracy of the flying aircraft to access later, more plentiful/more serviceable or reliable systems/engines etc make more sense for safety, costs and long term support of operations, BBMF “spits” with later model merlins being a good example.
Ideally we can have our cake and eat it too!
regards
Mark P
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