Welcome to the return of "Kits We'd Like To See!" Due to continuing parts fit problems, we won't have the concluding part of my lighthouse article until next month - apologies to anyone awaiting the conclusion! Instead this month we present the first in an occasional revival of this column. I'm hoping to continue the excellent work by Rich Borg from previous issues in presenting a range of interesting potential subjects for card model kits, plus enough reference materials to hopefully give any prospective designers a good start.

A number of items are lined up for future issues. I have been helping out our esteemed editor-in-chief Saul as work-experience Architecture Editor for the past couple of issues, so, naturally, I intend to publish nothing but architectural topics in this column and there is a a forty-seven-part series coming up titled Vernacular Architecture of the Cotswolds, 1620-1626 AD: Chicken Sheds and Turnip Barns, which I know you will all find as thrilling as I do. No! Actually, I'm quite a catholic modeller so I will be endeavouring to present a range of subjects covering all tastes, including ships, aircraft, airships, subs, architecture (especially the somewhat neglected fields of Classical architecture and post-mediaeval military architecture), cars, space, armour, and even the odd bit of SF and fantasy. We may even manage the occasional "Luftwaffe 1946" subject - THERE's one always guaranteed to cause surly muttering from the more 'codgerly' members at IPMS meetings! There'll be plenty of "wide appeal" material, but as you may have guessed from the foregoing I have an interest in the obscure and unusual.

"Obscure" is a good description of this month's item, but as an Australian I reckon it's only fair to start off with something close to home! The Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation built many of the Royal Australian Air Force's aircraft during WWII at Fisherman's Bend in Victoria. First flying in 1946, the CAC CA-15 was Australia's only advanced indigenous fighter. A single prototype was built, the result of a development programme begun during the war initially to improve the CA12 "Boomerang" fighter already flying with the Royal Australian Air Force. When the supply of high-performance aircraft from Britain and America began to seem uncertain this idea rapidly gave way to a completely new aircraft, conceived as a high-altitude, high-performance air-superiority fighter able to take on and beat anything then flying.

Initially, the intention was for various versions of the Pratt&Whitney; R-2800 twin-row radial engine to be used. Said version changed several times, depending on what the US thought they could spare, with resulting changes to the design and performance specifications. The major changes were to the fuselage profile from the nose to the mid-fuselage, depending on the need for nose air scoops, supercharger accommodation, etc. Flying surfaces changed little and in most respects the airframe remained remarkably unchanged during the design process. At this time, most maker's models depict the aircraft in then-current RAAF camouflage of brown and green with roundels the RAAF standard of blue outer ring with white inner circle and matching fin flashes (essentially the same as RAF roundels but missing the red inner circle). All proposed versions of the R-2800-powered aircraft are uniformly attractive, combining very clean lines with a pugnacious appearance to achieve an extremely pleasing aircraft. The overall effect is somewhere between a long-nose FW 190 and a Republic Thunderbolt, with perhaps a dash of Blackburn Firebrand (hmmm...speaking of which...) A model of the 'paper' plane in service livery at this stage would be very appealing indeed.

During 1943, Lawrence Wackett (head of CAC) decided to build the North American P-51 Mustang in Australia under licence, and assigned a low priority to the project (at this point, the aircraft's chances of entering service were effectively reduced to nil, though if more emphasis had been placed on it it would certainly have been possible as the eventual prototype displayed no vices and many virtues). He also reimagined it as a low-altitude fighter as he no longer felt that radial engines were suitable for high-altitude work. As it happened, it proved impossible to obtain the hoped-for engine anyway and the aircraft was redesigned for the more available Rolls-Royce Griffon. As an in-line V-12, this entailed some redesign of the nose and supercharger arrangements, and the resulting final design strongly resembled a scaled-up P-51. In fact, the aircraft is sometimes mistaken for a license-built derivative of the Mustang, which following Wackett's decision was indeed built in large numbers in Australia. In reality, there was no connection between the two. As can be seen, the all-silver prototype was also a handsome aeroplane.

Of course, following all the changes and uncertainties, the CA-15 (unofficially nicknamed "Kangaroo") was overtaken by events. Continued essentially only to keep the CAC design staff on their toes, the aircraft was not ready to fly until well after the end of the war, by which time equivalent aircraft such as the Hawker Tempest II and V or Focke-Wulf Ta 152 had already seen service and airforces around the world were re-equipping with jets.

Nonetheless, the CA-15 was the most advanced aircraft ever designed and built in Australia, and its performance was certainly startling - when eventually flown in 1946 (almost as a curiosity by then) it was among the faster piston-engined aircraft, with excellent handling. During one flight above Melbourne, it exceeded 502mph (following a dive). Repaired belatedly following a crash in 1949, the aircraft flew in a desultory flight-testing programme until the following year. Records indicate that after the return of its Griffon engine (a loaner from the RAF!) the airframe was 'reduced to components', or scrapped. A tragic loss for the Australian aircraft heritage scene of course, but a very common approach at the time. Numerous other unique prototype aircraft of enormous historical and aesthetic significance have been lost due to the prevailing pragmatic, unsentimental, practical (oh all right...BLEEDING PHILISTINE!) attitudes of the time. Of course, it's easy to criticise in hindsight, but military bureaucrats aren't curators and do have a job to do...it's just that we modellers might wish they wouldn't be *quite* as efficient sometimes! On the other hand even museums aren't safe havens for aircraft in all cases as several tragic cases have shown in the last decade or two, storms, hangar accidents and fires having taken a toll of preserved historic aircraft. There have even been some appalling incidents of museum aircraft and stores of rare spare parts being consigned to the scrap-man - surely ranking as outrages in today's preservation-minded climate. But...er...I digress, just a bit!

There are so many 'might have beens' with this sort of subject. But for Wackett's decision to license the P-51, it might well have been possible to produce the CA-15 in numbers with Griffon engines (the prototype's engine was provided due to British interest and admiration for the project sadly not shared by the Australian government) in time to meet RAAF wartime needs. The modelling fraternity would certainly have had another interesting and well-recognized subject and perhaps a wider choice of colour schemes. As it is, Wackett's decision was probably the right one based on the information he had at the time - on cost vs risk grounds, producing the P-51 was certainly a safe bet.

Today, for some reason, it's not rare to encounter modellers who turn up their noses at the thought of modelling prototype aircraft, even those that actually reached the flight-test or squadron testing stage. What they think of "paper-plane" projects is often literally unprintable! When you think about it, everything begins as a design. Industry would struggle without models of prospective designs for almost everything, whether or not the item is eventually built. What makes one design valid as a model subject for hobbyists, and not another? As far as most of the general public is concerned, all of us are grown adults playing with toys, so it makes one feel sad to encounter this kind of bias. Luckily, I've found card modelers are rarely so narrow and often actively seek out obscure subjects, so hopefully this article may stimulate someone to 'have a go'.

Either the eventual flight-tested prototype A62-1001, or any of the precursor radial-powered 'paper planes', (or both!) would make handsome paper models. The straight lines of the wings and tail surfaces in particular should make for easy design and modeling while the aircraft's 'sit' and lines are familiarly 'heavy metal warbird' yet distinctively different to those of the Mustang. My personal preference is for the radial-powered variants since they have that great Tempest 2-style purposeful agressive look, but the inline-powered prototype has been popular with aeromodellers and also looks great in model form.

* An excellent book in the "In Australian Service" series covers the CA-15, as well as the CA-12 Boomerang and CA-1 Wirraway. It is "Wirraway, Boomerang & CA-15 In Austalian Service", by Stewart Wilson, printed by Aerospace Publications, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek ACT 2611, Australia - ISBN 0 9587978 8 9 - date 1991. All drawings and photographs are from this book except the 1943 radial-engined profile which is by the author. Cardmodelers Online is a non-profit webzine run by modelers for modelers (and fun!). Every effort is made to use photographs and drawings in a 'fair use' manner and attribute them correctly. If you are the copyright holder and object to any use of any image in this article please contact the author at nipngnwm@q-net.net.au and the offending image will be removed.