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CAC CA-9 Wirraway In Training & Combat (SH72473) 1:72 Special Hobby The CAC Wirraway was a trainer aircraft developed by the Australian Commonwealth Aircraft Company (CAC) that 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 Mitsubishi Zero flying below him and shot it down. The Kit This is a reboxing with new decals of a tooling from 2010, so is relatively modern, and arrives in an end-opening red, white and grey themed box with a painting of a yellow Wirraway on the front, and side profiles of the two decal options on the rear. Inside the box are two sprues of grey styrene, a clear sprue, a bag containing three grey resin parts, another bag with the decals inside, and the instruction booklet in A5 format, printed in colour on glossy paper. Detail is good, with a well-appointed cockpit, resin engine and cowling, and crystal-clear canopy in two parts. There is a wisp of flash here and there, but the majority of it is on the sprue runners themselves. Construction begins with the cockpit, adding the two seats on frames, control columns and two pairs of rudder pedals to the floor, then bracketing it with the framework, which has cross-braces and equipment added, and detailed painting instructions called out, which continues throughout the build. A large instrument panel and coaming are inserted into the starboard fuselage half along with the cockpit and a few other small detail parts, then the two halves of the fuselage can be glued together, making up the wings from full-span lower and two upper surfaces, with a gear bay insert added into the lower. The fuselage is inserted into the space between the upper wings, and the elevators are glued to the tail on a pair of pegs, although the instructions make it look like a butt-joint. Up front, the three resin parts are used, starting with the firewall that is glued to the front of the fuselage, then the resin Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial engine is mated to the raised circular centre of the firewall after painting up the various components, and if you are feeling adventurous, you could also wire up the ignition leads. The cowling is slipped over the finished engine after the interior surface is painted grey-green, with a styrene chin intake added underneath. The main gear are simple struts with retraction legs inboard, and the one-part wheels attach to the axles along with a captive bay door on the outer side. The tail wheel is moulded with an integral strut, and fixes on a fairing under the tail, after which the model can sit on its own three wheels. The canopy is glued over the cockpit cut-out, leaving off the rear section to accommodate the rear-firing machine gun that is mounted on two semi-circular frames. An aerial post is fitted in front of the windscreen, adding two forward-firing machine gun barrels into the troughs in the nose, a pair of landing light lenses in the leading edges of the wings and a cranked pitot probe around mid-span of the starboard wing. The prop is a single part and slots over the axle on the bell-housing on the front of the motor to complete the build phase. Markings There are two decal options in this boxing, one in yellow, the other a foliage green, both with roundels that have no red component at the centre, due to trigger-happy gunners literally seeing red and assuming they were Japanese aircraft. From the box you can build one of the following: A20-617 (C/N 818) No.86 Sqn., RAAF, Northern Australia, Spring/Summer, 1945 A20-637 (C/N 1089) No.4 Sqn., RAAF, New Guinea, 1944 The decals appear to be printed using the same digital processes as Eduard are now using, and have good registration, sharpness, and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut loosely around the printed areas. I mention Eduard because from 2021, the carrier film on their decals can be coaxed away from the printed part of the decal after they have been applied, effectively rendering them carrier film free, making the completed decals much thinner and more realistic, and obviating the need to apply successive coats of clear varnish to hide the edges of the carrier film. It’s a great step further in realism from my point of view, and saves a good quantity of precious modelling time into the bargain. Conclusion A welcome re-release of a more unusual and left-field subject that nonetheless played an important part in training pilots that fought in WWII. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of