CAC Woomera
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The CAC Woomera, also known as the CAC CA-4 and CAC CA-11, was an Australian
bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...
aircraft that was designed and constructed by the
Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation The Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) was an Australian aircraft manufacturer. The CAC was established in 1936, to provide Australia with the capability to produce military aircraft and engines. History In 1935 the Chief General Manager ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The order for the Woomera was cancelled before it became operational with the
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
(RAAF).


Design and development

In early 1939, the Australian Government ordered large numbers of
Bristol Beaufort The Bristol Beaufort (manufacturer designation Type 152) is a British twin-engined torpedo bomber designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and developed from experience gained designing and building the earlier Blenheim light bomber. At l ...
bombers, with major components to be built in a variety of locations, including railway workshops, and in doing so it by-passed the local aircraft company, the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. CAC, under Sir
Lawrence Wackett Sir Lawrence James Wackett (2 January 1896 – 18 March 1982) is widely regarded as "father of the Australian aircraft industry". He has been described as "one of the towering figures in the history of Australian aviation covering, as he did, ...
, began work on its own design, hoping to out-perform the Beaufort by building a machine that could serve as both a torpedo-bomber and dive bomber. To keep down weight, Wackett dispensed with traditional
self-sealing fuel tanks A self-sealing fuel tank is a type of fuel tank, typically used in aircraft fuel tanks or fuel bladders, that prevents them from leaking fuel and igniting after being damaged. Typical self-sealing tanks have multiple layers of rubber and reinfor ...
and opted to make the wing cavities liquid-tight, and thus serve as fuel storage. The Australian Government was initially uninterested in the CAC design. However, in mid-1940, cut off from the supply of British-made components for the Beaufort program (thanks to a British embargo on the export of aviation products, due to the need to maximise British production during the Battle of Britain), the Australian Government ordered a prototype of the CAC design, even before the
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
had expressed a view about the machine. This prototype CA-4 took to the air on 19 September 1941. The CA-4 was a low-wing, twin-engined, multi-role bomber with a crew of three. It was armed with four nose-mounted .303 calibre machine guns and two remote-controlled twin machine-guns
barbette Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection ...
mounted at the rear of the engine
nacelles A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attached ...
. It could carry either bombs, bombs or two torpedoes. It was originally powered by two
Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp The Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp is an American air-cooled radial aircraft engine. It displaces and its bore and stroke are both . The design traces its history to 1929 experiments at Pratt & Whitney on twin-row designs. Production began ...
R-1830-S3C3-G radials. Unfortunately, the novel fuel tanks never proved reliable, and in January 1943 the CA-4 prototype was completely destroyed in a mid-air explosion, probably due to a fuel leak. With a re-designed tail and rudder, and an improved nose armament of two 20 mm cannon and two .303 (7.7 mm) calibre machine guns, the CA-4 became the CA-11 Woomera.


Production

Faced with the crisis caused by the Japanese entry into the war in December 1941, the RAAF accepted the design even before testing was complete, and ordered 105 examples of the CAC bomber on 8 March 1942. However, after the loss of the CA-4 prototype, the redesigned CA-11 did not fly until June 1944. By the time production was due to commence, the dive-bombing concept had fallen into disfavour and the RAAF was filling the light bomber/reconnaissance/strike role with British-designed
Bristol Beaufighter The Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter (often called the Beau) is a British multi-role aircraft developed during the Second World War by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It was originally conceived as a heavy fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort ...
s (which were being made in Australia by the
Department of Aircraft Production Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) was the name of an aircraft manufacturer owned by the Government of Australia. The primary factory was located at Fishermans Bend, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria. It had its origins in the lead-up to World ...
); US-made bombers, including the
B-25 Mitchell The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in ...
, had also become available. Consequently, the original Woomera order was reduced from 105 to 20. After the first CA-11 flew, the whole program was cancelled and the production capacity set aside for Woomeras at CAC was switched to
P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...
fighters. The only completed CA-11 Woomera, A23-1, was stripped for parts and scrapped in 1946.


Loss of CA-4

On 15 January 1943, the prototype CA-4, ''A23-1001'', crashed on a test flight to assess powerplant performance and evaluate aerodynamic effects of a new fixed leading edge slat. During the return to the CAC airfield at Fisherman's Bend, the pilot, Squadron Leader Jim Harper, had detected a fuel leak in the port
Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...
R-1830 engine. As the problem worsened he attempted to shut down the engine, feathering the propeller; however, the actuation of the feathering switch caused an explosion and uncontrollable fire. The three-man crew subsequently attempted evacuation at , yet only Harper succeeded in parachuting free, while the CAC test pilot Jim Carter and power plant group engineer Lionel Dudgeon were both killed. The airframe subsequently impacted south-west of
Kilmore, Victoria Kilmore () is a town in the Australian state of Victoria. Located north of Melbourne, it is the oldest inland town in Victoria by the combination of age and physical occupation, and because it had unique agricultural attributes to drive that e ...
. The wreckage was recovered and used for components.Isaacs, p. 58.


Operators

; *
Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...


Specifications


See also


Notes


Bibliography

* Ewer, Peter. ''Wounded Eagle: The Bombing of Darwin and Australia's Air Defence Scandal''. Sydney: New Holland, 2009. * Green, William. ''War Planes of the Second World War: Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft, Volume Seven''. London: Macdonald, 1967. . * Isaacs, Keith. "Wackett's Wonder". ''Air Enthusiast Quarterly'', No. 1, n.d., pp. 52–65.


External links


adf-serials.com, 2003, "ADF Aircraft Serial Numbers RAAF A23 CAC CA-4/CA-11 Woomera"War Time Plane Crash, Bylands, Vic. 1943
{{ADF aircraft designations Woomera 1940s Australian bomber aircraft Low-wing aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of Australia Aircraft first flown in 1941 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft