Warbird Information Exchange

Gee, and here I was having a pretty good day...

Sad. Sure hope the photographer has fond memories though!

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Are these shots from post-war Aussie?

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He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
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DBF

Yes, sob, sob, sob...


Chris

The stories of aircraft lot to scrapping in the early days of aircraft preservation can be very depressing, and I am aware of stories of P40's remaining largely intact in Australia into the early 1960's.

Another crying shame is that no-one saved any of the CA-11 Woomera fuselages shown dumped in the third picture, which were all production fuselages and jigs scrapped direct from the CAC production line and survived in a Melbourne tip into the 1960's.

The CA-11 could be described as the ultimate T6/Harvard derivitive of the NA-16 family, following the licence built Wirraway and the creation of the stop gap Boomerang using the same design and construction methods, CAC set about creating a twin engined fighter/ torpedo bomber, using the same design and construction of welded steel tube fuselage and Northrup 3 piece wing plan inherited from the NA-16, the earlier CA-4 prototype was lost in a crash and by the time the CA-11 was ready to hit production the access to British built Beaufighters, and American forces arrival meant the Boomerang story was not repeated in a Bomber form.

Still a fantastic museum artifact and relic of Australia's manufacturing heritage lost to us all.

Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"

I guess you mean photo 4 not 3 as 3 is of the underside of the tail section of one indoors.

while obviously not as conversant with the CA-11 and construction techinques of them ( wouldn't have recognised those without prompting ) I am amazed at the variety and amount of other aircraft visible in some of the other photos from that site.

in just that small series I have managed to identify oxford, mustang and anson. the rest of them show other types too.

there are a couple of pics from that site which have me very curious though. In Buz Busby's photo group for photos 5,6 and 7 ( link at the end of this ) there is a structure in place in front of the cockpit of a very early model P40 and it has me wondering what it might be.

http://www.p40warhawk.com/WW2_Era/BuzBusby/BuzBusby.htm

and yes it is a great pity that the govts of the day weren't a bit more history conscious despite the statement in the newsreels of the time of how momentous and how things were the largest of their type ever and so forth and save at least one of every airframe. oh well, no use crying over spilt milk