Warbird Information Exchange

Hi Chris

Thanks for that


I can't claim to have a deep knowledge of all of this on Boomerangs and Wirraways - just a real interest in them. Luckily JDK and I got to go for a few very nice rides in a Wirraway recently and we both have an interest in them

And there are 2 Boomerangs flying at present in the world , both withing 2 hours of my place , heres my favourite - Matt Dennings




and a Wirraway from Wangaratta

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Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

Can the T6 center section be used as a template to build a Wirraway or Boomerang Center Section? Or is it so terribly off that there is no hope.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

Yes I believe it can, because I've heard of people flying T-6s w/ Wirraway wings. I believe that you'd have to reskin the center section and apply Wirraway attach angles.

Hi Chris

I believe you are correct here in as much as the first flying Boomerang restoration was flown initally with what I believe were modified(cut down) T6 wings but because they were weaker and did not have the extra reinforcing they limited the aircrafts capabilities and in due course were replaced with purpose built items made for the Zuccolis by Mat Denning and his team.

I have not heard of any T6 flying with Wirraway wings but would love to know if it did happen and where. I am also pretty sure no Wirraway has flown with stock T6 centre structure but I could be wrong because Wirraway centre sections are Very hard to get so perhaps they are new building them of beefing up and modifying T6 ones - I do doubt it but thats restoration - you can often be proven wrong.

I believe the original Boomerang /T6 wings are now with Kermit as part of his Boomerang project.

Regards
John P

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Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

Thanks Setter:

Yes as long as the Wirraway wings are stronger, then you'd probably be ok. maybe not the other way around, though

Don't take my word for it, make sure you know what you are doing.

The Wirraway had split flaps in some (all?) versions rather like the SBD ones for it's 'dive bombing role' and bomb racks and reinforcement, unlike the T-6

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Hi JDK:

It sounds like a custom job then, how about P51 wings on a T-6? Just kidding..

Hi James

And I believe it was customary to wire up the "dive brakes" as they didn't work as expected ?

Regards
John P

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Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

Hi all,
Will try to add some interesting comments to this discussion. Firstly, to John (Forgotten Field), a T-6 wing centre section can actually be used on the Wirraway and Boomerang - with some fairly minor modifications. There are certainly differences between this unit and the Aussie ones however the aerofoil is the same as are the dimensions. Three original Boomerangs (not counting the replica in the U.S.) have T-6/Harvard centre sections and this number will increase as additional projects progess.

Chris (HarvardIV), I'm not doubting that you've heard about Wirraway wings being fitted to T-6s however I'm 99.9% sure that this would never have happened. The main reason for this is that Wirraway wings are very, very rare in comparison to T-6 wings. Stall characteristics would be adversely altered as well.

Setter, Guido/Lynette's Boomerang definitely did have modified T-6 wings fitted during restoration. The reason that they were replaced with new build units from Matt was I believe in an attempt to make the aircraft more authentic rather than a strength issue as such. Could be wrong but I doubt that such a reduced strength would have been accepted in an aircraft which was known for its maneuvrability. These wings are still in Australia and will fly again fitted to another Boomerang. Kermit purchased a new build pair from Matt.

JDK/Setter, the split flaps on the upper wing surface were designed as part of the proposed dive bomber Wirraway, the CA-10. CA-16 variant aircraft left the factory with these fitted and numerous older aircraft were retrofitted by companies such as Clyde Engineering. The dive flaps were pretty much found to be a failure on operations and the RAAF issued a Wirraway Order (or Instruction - can't remember which off the top of my head) directing that they be lockwired closed.

Cheers,
Matt

folks here is some info on the parentage of the Wirraway in North American family tree previously posted on the KPAF board

, the NA-16 was "Britishized" by Australia into the Wirraway with BA hardware on u bolts etc, but is essentially a licence built NA-16, the Boomerang, perhaps inspired by the NA-64 series of single seat fighter T6 Derivatives (CAC proposed a single seat Wirraway back in 1939) but the eventual Boomerang design is a product of a jewish refugee from former former German/Japanese aircraft manufacturing, who focused on mating as many standard Wirraway parts into a design using the most powerful engine being manufactured in Australia at the time (the P&W 1830 being produced for the DAP Beaufort.)

The Nearest American Service A/c to the Wirraway was the BC-1, but with non-geared 1340.

The Boomerang and Ceres are both further removed from the NA-16 and T6 line than the original Wirraway was in terms of standard parts, the Wirraway does use some 19- casting parts that survived through to early SNJ-3 T6A aircraft but most other parts appear similar but are engineered different to their corresponding T6 parts.

(What is worse is the CA-6 Wackett Trainer was treated as a design exercise in itself and many of its parts at first glance appear to be Wirraway but also re-engineered or slightly smaller making them more difficult and unique to locate)


regards

Mark Pilkington


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30th July 2004, 12:02
Mark_pilkington
Rank 3 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 76

NA-16- Wirraways, Harvards T6 and SNJ's

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Wirraways NA-16s, T6/SNJ & Harvards are all part of the successful North American NA-16 family of trainers.

The North American Trainer model numbers and Contract numbers become quite confusing, the following is based on the WARBIRDTECH series NA-16/AT-6/SNJ

The Wirraway is a direct NA-16 derivative with the distinctive all steel tube/fabric covered fuselage and straight trailing edge wing (The NA-32 and NA-33 were "contract" numbers as well as "model" numbers), The Contract numbers primarily related to the customer order, CAC received contract numbers 32 (actually an NA-16-1A with fixed gear and 2 blade prop), and contract number 33 (actually an NA-16-2k with retract gear and 3 blade prop and geared 1340).

The Harvard 1 is also an NA-16 derivative (NA-49 actually an NA-16-1E) while the Yale, NJ-1, SNJ-2 and BC-1 are themselves all seperate branch off derivatives of the NA-16 developments with various combinations of tapered wing, straight wing trailing edges, monocoque and steel tube rear fuselages.

The NA-16 design evolved further from the BC-1 (NA-26) and BT-9 (NA-29) family of T6 Ancestors with differing engine sizes, The NA-16 model references cease at the Contract number NA-56 which is an AN-16-4 and the BC-1A (NA-55), Yale (NA-57) and BT-14 (NA-58) at last started to bring together the monocoque fuselage and tapered wing and adoption of the ungeared P&W 1340 Wasp engine.

AT6 as contract number NA-59 commences the new T6/Harvard/SNJ family derivatives and leads on to the SNJ-2 as contract NA-65, Harvard 11 as contract number NA-66.

Finally the definative AT6A/SNJ-3 emerge as contract NA-77, with a multitude of contract numbers applying to the following T6-C,D,F and G, SNJ-4,5,6 and Harvard 111 and 1V models but are all effectively the same basic airframe structure of monocoque fuselage and tapered wing, hidden inside them all is the steel tube front fuselage frame derived from the basic NA-16.

regarding the posts above regarding Harvard II and IIA differences, the Harvard II (NA-66) was built by North American and "was effectively a BC-1A fitted with british equipment and circular control column"(T6 in Action - signal publications), whereas the Mk IIA were lend lease T6-C's (NA-88), explaining the US cockpit configurations.

The Harvard IIB were built in Canada by Noordyun and was similar to the NA built Harvard II above (but given no NA contract number).

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Glad some people with hand on CAC experience have chipped in!

My only comments would be that the Wirraway/T-6 centre section interchangability would be a question of the shape and mountings being dictated by the airfoil (as Matt said) and the jig / construction pick up points being 'standard'; is that fair comment? Also I understood that though the Boomerang centre section was different, it was built on a Wirraway centre section jig... Is that correct?

Secondly, Wayne Milburn, LAME for the Zuccoli Boomerang told Setter and I (IIRC) about the load limitation on the original T-6 wings it was fitted with, as well as the authenticity issue. Would be interesting to know if that was 'just' an Australian Civil Aviation licencing 'caution'.

There was an earlier Boomerang built in the US, but was basically a Boomerang lookalike (very close, actually) but without the Boomerang contruction being followed and T-6 parts being used.

I've a photo somewhere of the dive brakes on the Wangaratta Wirraway - as you say, wired closed, but the structure will therefore be different to the rest of the T-6 family...


Cheers

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Hi Mark and Matt

Thanks for this, I really appreciate your knowledge here - thanks for bringing it to the conversation.

Regards
John

_________________
Air Vice Marshall
Sunshine State Air Farce

Some Boomerang parts were in fact used, but the tubular and tailcone were modified T-6, and a set of T-6 wings were shortened and the ailerons relocated inboard. There was also a bit of fiberglass on it as I recall. The aircraft is now owned by Eliot Cross.

This was the second iteration of a T-6 conversion involving Dale Clarke (with Dennis Sanders), the first being the NA-50 replica built by Dale and Alan Wocjiak. A number of other NA-50 replicas have since been built.

There was an article in Classic Wings several years ago about the Zuccoli reiplica Boomerang wings being fitted to a T-6 after the Matt Denning new build wings had been fitted to the Boomerang as an exercise to see how they changed its performance.
This may be what HarvardIV had heard about.

If I remember rightly the result was a gain in performance and it looked pretty cool.

Would this make it a 'Boomvard' or a 'Harverang'?

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Hi James,
Wirraway, T-6 and Boomerang wing centre sections would all be interchangable with some minor alterations depending on the installation. As an example, a Wirraway centre section has been used very successfully on an airworthy Boomerang. The main alteration that I know of which to be made was to move some attach points from one side of the spar to the other. There were numerous other minor alterations as well but I don't believe any of these represented structural deficiencies.

With the T-6/Harvard centre section option, the Harvard IV unit is the preferred due to it apparently being a stronger structure. I'm not expert enough to really discuss that though. Internal structure differs quite markedly in some respects but it was just an easier way to do things which NAA developed as they advanced the NA-16 series.

No T-6/Harvard centre sections have been used on any Wirraways to date however the time will come where this will likely happen. As mentioned in my post yesterday, 3 genuine Boomerangs have got T-6/Harvard centre sections.

Cheers,
Matt