THE BOOMERANG

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 39, 11 January 1944, Page 7

THE BOOMERANG

AUSTRALIAN FIGHTER

NEW INTERCEPTOR PLANE

Eighteen months ago the. Austra-lian-made interceptor plane, the Boomerang, wasn't even a gleam in a designer's eye, and for a country which had never built a modern typo aircraft before M.'M that is a record, of which to be proud.

The idea was born in January,

1942, when the Japanese were sweeping sou til. Australia .seemed booked J'or invasion. She had not a single lighter plane. Britain had none to spare. America needed all of hers.

Commonwealth Aircraft Coloration engineers set to work on the design of a single seat interceptor. Fourteen weeks after the designers roughed out their ideas the iirst aircraft took the air*.

For months supply from abroad was pitifully below requirements, but by this time Boomerangs "were coming oif the line, pilots were being trained and squadrons formed. So there had for some time been a small .secret reserve of Austra'.ian- ! made lighters which i>n some, circumstances have been all we would have: to reiy on to supplement lorees already in the country. Report Accepted! In 193(i, an aircraft mission was sent round the Avorld and the Air Board accepted its report. The idea was that Australia should be producing a complete aeroplane, as iar as possible of Australian materials, as. .soon as possible. The Wirriway, a trainer, was first. How the Boomerang will compare, with Japanese aircraft in the test of warfare it. is stilli too early to say. But with heavy armament, a jetti.so liable belly tank to increa.se range, high manoeuvrability , and good all-round performance, it looks promising. l/ii J935 when the Commonwealth Government decided that an Australian aircraft industry A\as essential to the defence of Australia, there were, critics of repute who declared it beyond our industrial capacity. The best known aviation magazine in England referred with .scorn to the "assembly plant" established in Melbourne. In actual fact, before the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation had been long established it Avas manufacturing a greater proportion of its aeroplanes than any other aircraft manufacturer in the world. Aircraft Tolerances This Avas forced on it because many Australian manufacturers avlio were needed as sub-contractors were not accustomed to working to air-, craft tolerances and at first could not supply sufficient quantities of components that avouUl pass inspection. The Wirriaway has been criticised on totally false grounds by people avlio don't know tlie. facts. It A\*as not intended as a first-line aeroplane, although, as a fact, it Avas superior in performance to any aeroplane the Japanese. were believed to be able to bring against Australia until all ideas of Japanese types were, changed on December 7, 1911. Only because no country in the world had aeroplanes to sell to Australia was it perforce pressed into front-line service!

What the, Wk-rnwny was intended /'or was advanced training and the majority of the hundreds of Wirraways built have been used for that purpose. ft was such a successful trainer that Britain sought to buy hundreds of the American type from which it was developed and wanted to buy as many of the Australian aircraft as Australia could spare.

Without those. Wirraways, Australia could not have trained more than a fraction of the number of

aircrews who arc now serving in the R.A.F. or the R.A.A.F. all over the. world. That is to-day the major contribution of the Australian aircraft industry to the lighting strength of the United Nnlions.

Also instruments; helping this country take the share it lias in tit* ting the lion with wings- is the Wackett trainer,, the: small monoplane which has supplemented the T ige.r Moth, produced by De Hayilland Aircraft (Australia) Pty., Lc'i, as an initial trainer.—Condensetr from '"Wings," the official magazine of the K.A.A.F.