Category: Australian aircraft
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CAC Wirraway – Part Six – No. 4 Sqn RAAF
I have been googling No. 4 Sqn in WW2 with reference to the Wirraway. These were busy aircraft. The squadron was generally intended for reconnaissance when it was formed before the war and was working closely with the Australian Army and US Army in New Guinea throughout the conflict. It looks as if this was…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Five – Foliage Green
And Sky Blue, and let the colour contestants retire to their corners and come out fighting. I was fortunate to receive a book from a friend full of careful tests and colour patches for WW2 aircraft. It contained references for RAAF Foliage Green and Earth Brown and I was able to mix reasonable matches with…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Four – Gappy vs Gapless
It is pretty simple to guess whether kit builders prefer their models with good or bad fit. But if there is going to be a situation in between – where do you want the gaps to fall? The aircraft modeller generally sees it in wings and tail, with the ambitious factories inventing new places to…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Three – An Evergreen Cockpit
When the world gives you bare cockpits you just go out and build your own. The High planes Wirraway is a kit on a budget and there doesn’t seem to be enough in the kitty for much interior. I count a cockpit floor, two seats, two control sticks, and a couple of instrument panels. As…
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CAC Wirraway – Part Two – The Grind Begins
With a grinding… Specifically, inside the wings and the fuselage, Both these areas have cast re-enforcements running diagonally over their rough plastic. I suspect they are extra conduits for the molten styrene to flow through so that sufficient bulk of material reaches past thin areas. Other makers may design sprue tree elements outside of the…
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CAC Wirraway – Part One – The Challenge
Apparently that is what the word translates to from one of the aboriginal languages. In modern day terms it was one of the licence-built derivatives from a North American design – the root of which gave us the Yale, Harvard, Texan, and NA 16. And probably a Soviet copy somewhere, if they ran true to…
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CAC Winjeel – Part Four – FTS 1
Point Cook, Victoria. SOOTB rendition of this Winjeel and I don’t think I could be happier with the result. It will form the starting point of a number of RAAF training types – with the occasional side-excursion to an aerobatics team aircraft or the FAC service livery as used on ADF exercises. You have to…
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CAC Winjeel – Part Three – Baking Box
You might think that the cockpit of this aircraft would deserve that nickname. If the pilots were stuck on the cross taxiing strips waiting for something to clear they might be. That is what they always had an Esky full of VB in the back seat. No good dehydrating, is it? The final fit before…
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CAC Winjeel – Part Two – High Planes Surprise
It is a mistake to judge a book by its cover or a scale model kit by its sprue tree. In both cases appearances can be deceptive. The first glance at a High Planes product is not conducive to confidence – the trees seem crude and you wonder whether it is worthwhile going on. Have…
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CAC Winjeel – Part One – The Native Name
Air forces all over the world have code name families for their aircraft. Thus you get fighter plane names that project power like the USAAF Thunderbolt and Lightning or training names like the RCAF Yale and Harvard. In Australia there is a tendency to apply aboriginal native names to aircraft Like Boomerang and Wirraway. The…
The Little World 