Moderator: Commissar D, the Evil
), apart from the odd peek at the riddles.
Need some 
to investigate ![:[]](./images/smilies/icon_study.gif "Study"){kind=icon}
) a CAC Boomerang. http://www.aarg.com.au/boomerang.htmCAC CA-12 Boomerang A46-25 (on display – fuselage only)
Formed in October 1936, the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation had completed over 430 Wirraways, and nearly 90 Wackett Trainers, when in December 1941 Japanese forces attached the US Navy at Pearl Harbour.
Although already at war with Germany in Europe, the entry of Japan in the Pacific brought the threat of invasion directly to Australia, which had little in the way of modern aircraft based at home.
Three days after the attack, Fred David, Chief Engineer at CAC, sketched a drawing of a single seat fighter, using the most powerful engine available in production in Australia, and using as many Wirraway components as possible to allow for rapid production. On 21 December 1941, detailed design began, and by 29 May 1942 the first aircraft had test flown, a staggering period of little of 22 weeks.
Fred David, as a German Jew, had previously worked for Heinkel in Germany, and later the Japanese Aircraft Company before fleeing Japan as a refugee as it established military links with Nazi Germany. As such Fred David was considered officially as an “unfriendly” alien, and was required to report to the police every fortnight.
It is ironic that development of Australia’s “stop gap” fighter was due to the efforts of a man technically treated as the “enemy”.
...and so his PRE-war career, that seemed to me in other sources to be downplayed so much - was actually quite large and varied in WWII terms!!!Back in Germany a certain Adolf Hitler had come to power, and this presented Ernst Heinkel with a number of opportunities, in the shape of military orders for the new Luftwaffe - and also problems, with the anti-Semitic politics of the Nazi party. The HE-118 was a dive bomber development of the "Blitz" which lost out to the JU-87. Likewise the HE-112 fighter was inferior to the Bf-109, but the HE-111 bomber went into large-scale production. All these designs retained the distinctive elliptical wing planform, although the HE-111 was later redesigned with straight tapered wings.
Fred David was then a young engineer working for Heinkel. Because of Fred's Jewish background, Ernst Heinkel arranged for him to become Heinkel's engineering representative in Japan, where Heinkel had long been providing aeroplanes for the Japanese Navy, which were manufactured under license by local Japanese companies.
Fred's first project was a hurried redesign of the HE-112 to suit the Japanese, including a radial engine and a fixed undercarriage. This went into service as the Mitsubishi A5M, later code-named "Claude". With its open cockpit and fixed undercarriage it was very much a stop-gap design, as the Mitsubishi concern soon afterwards brought out the radical Type O "Zero" fighter to replace it.
Nevertheless the "Claude" played an important part in the China war and saw some action in the early phase of the war in the Pacific. On board the carrier Shoho in the Coral Sea battle, they were unable to stop SBDs from the Yorktown sinking their ship.
Fred David's next project was the conversion of the Heinkel dive bomber into the Aichi Type 99. Once more the Japanese Navy specified a radial engine and a fixed spatted undercarriage. Junkers-style external "park bench" dive brakes were also adopted, the Aichi concern holding licenses from Junkers as well as Heinkel. With a 1,000hp radial engine the Type 99 "Val" had a better performance than the original Heinkel design and proved to be a deadly ship killer, responsible for most of the early Japanese victories in the first phase of the Pacific war.
Meanwhile the feared "Kempi-tai" secret police began to take rather a close interest in the young engineer from Germany. Questions about his family background caused Fred to depart in haste. Fred ended up in Australia just as war broke out, where he found himself behind barbed wire in an internment camp. As a German citizen, Fred was now an enemy alien in a country at war with Germany.
Next came the Japanese attack in the Pacific, the loss of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin. Desperate times breed desperate measures. Somehow the Managing Director of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, Lawrence Wackett (later Sir Lawrence) became aware of Fred's existence and qualifications. Within days Fred was installed as chief engineer at CAC in charge of an urgent and top-secret project, to design another stop-gap fighter, desperately needed to defend Australia against the Japanese.
Utilising the engine from the Hudson and many parts from the Wirraway the resulting CAC Boomerang outperformed the "Claude" and the "Val" and could even compete with the Zero at low altitudes. During 1943 comparative fighter trials were carried out between various allied fighters and a captured Zero in Australia. The pilot in a CAC Boomerang was Sqn. Ldr. Roy Goon, who reported that at low altitudes the Boomerang could out turn the Zero, as long as speed was maintained.
The Boomerang excelled at low altitude work and with a rugged airframe and plenty of ammunition, became a useful ground attack aircraft. Fred David continued as chief CAC designer throughout the war, working on top secret projects, despite having to report to the police each week as a registered "enemy alien"! After the war he became an Australian citizen and chief of the Aerodynamics Research Laboratories, and incidentally my boss, as I was then a humble assistant in the wind tunnel.
Later still, I learned to fly and Roy Goon checked me out for solo in a DHC-1 Chipmunk.
A local historian, and another noted RAAF pilot, Keith Meggs is working on a biography of Fred David and his book should be available soon.
YES! But Waleed DID do ca. 90% of the job... 
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