CAC CA-3/5 Wirraway "First Blood over Rabaul" - 1:72 Special Hobby

[Paul A H]

CAC CA-3/5 Wirraway "First Blood over Rabaul"

1:72 Special Hobby

The CAC Wirraway was a trainer aircraft developed by the Australian Commonwealth Aircraft Company. It was based on the North American NA-16, a design which was itself developed into the T-6 Texan. CAC altered the basic design of the NA-16 by adding a second forward firing machine gun and strengthening the wings to enable the aircraft to perform dive bombing missions. A total of 755 Wirraways were built by the time production ended and the design also served as the basis for the Boomerang emergency fighter. Aside from fulfilling its role as a trainer aircraft, the Wirraway was also pressed into service as a stop-gap fighter and ground-attack aircraft during the early phases of engagement between Japanese and Australian forces. The type's only air combat victory occurred in January 1942, when Pilot Officer J.S. Archer dived on a Zero flying below him and shot it down.

There have been a few kits of the Wirraway released over the years, although all of them hail from the limited run end of the spectrum. Beechnut Models produced a crude injection moulded kit first, before High Planes and MPM both released kits in the nineties. Special Hobby's kit comprises of over 60 parts moulded in grey styrene, as well as a handful of resin parts. The kit looks pretty good on the sprue, with plenty of moulded detail and surface structures made up of fine, recessed lines.

The long cockpit is very well detailed, being made up of well over twenty parts. The sub-assembly is made up of a floor, the interior sidewall framework, two seats, control columns, rudder pedals, instrument panels and control columns, as well as smaller details such as the radio set. The overall effect is suitably busy and leaves a pretty favourable impression. A set of photo etched harnesses would finish things off nicely if you happen to have some to hand. Once the cockpit has been assembled and painted, the fuselage halves can be joined. The wing is next, and in common with many other kits, the lower wing is moulded as a single complete span, with separate upper wings for port and starboard. The main wheel well is moulded separately and needs to be sandwiched between the two. Ailerons are moulded in place, as are the elevators on the tail planes and the rudder.

The upper forward fuselage decking, which houses the pair of forward firing machine guns, has been moulded separately, which the firwall, engine and cowling have all been produced using resin rather than plastic in order to better capture the detail and shape of the real thing. With the addition of these parts, the basic airframe is pretty much complete. As with the real thing, the undercarriage is fairly simple but looks decent. There are only partial landing gear doors as the wheels on the real thing just recess into the landing gear bay. Final details include the propeller, pitot tube, radio aerial mast and rear-firing machine gun. The clear canopy is fairly decent, which is just as well as this area is very prominent on this aircraft. Interestingly, with this boxing you can cut the rear portion of the canopy away and replace it with the supplied resin blank in order to build the single-seat dive bomber version used by No.23 Squadron in 1940/41.

A generous four options are provided on the decal sheet:

• CAC CA-3 A20-71, No.24 Squadron RAAF, Lakunai Drome, 1942;
• CAC CA-3 A20-47 GA-B, No.21 Squadron RAAF, Malaya, 1940-1;
• CAC CA-5 A20-103, No.4 Squadron RAAF, New Guinea, 1942 (this is the aforementioned aircraft which shot down a Mitsubishi Zero); and
• CAC CA-3 A20-101, No.23 Squadron RAAF, 1940-1. This is the single-seater aircraft converted for use as a dive bomber;

All of the aircraft are finished in Dark Earth and Dark Green over either aluminium dope or sky blue.

Conclusion

This is a nice little kit which possesses enough detail to keep most modellers happy. Whilst the usual caveats about limited run kits apply, this should still be an enjoyable and satisfying model to build. I particularly welcome Special Hobby's decision to include the parts for the dive bomber conversion, as for me this is by far the most interesting and eye-catching option. Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[Ed Russell]

The type's only air combat victory occurred in January 1942, when Pilot Officer J.S. Archer dived on a Zero flying below him and shot it down.

Now generally thought to be a Ki-43

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/ki-43/yoshitake.html

Good general article here on Wirraway colours etc

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal11/10601-10700/gal10615-Wirraway-Mead/00.shtm

[Julien]

I like the look of this one.

If anyone is building one we have an extensive walkaround of a restored one; http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234945669-cac-wirraway/

Julien