Wooden aircraft toy : CAC Woomera

A simple wooden model of a CAC Wackett Woomera, constructed from nine pieces (wing, fuselage, cockpit, pair of engines, pair of retracted wheels, tailplane and rudder) with filling material smoothing the wing/engine join. Five nails have been used to represent the three nose guns and the forward and rear facing guns of the cockpit. There is evidence of the outer wings having had roundels attached and the entire toy is thickly coated in hand-brushed dark grey paint.

Example of a toy made at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) factory at Fisherman's Bend in Melbourne. According to the donors, a batch of these were made in 1943/44 and given to children of RAAF personnel at the CAC Christmas party. The original recipient told the donors he was delighted with his present: 'I thought it was Christmas alright as I took it home to Box Hill on the train.' The model is based on a CAC Woomera, an aircraft designed by Wing Commander Lawrence Wackett in late 1940 with 105 being ordered by the War Cabinet in early 1942 from CAC. The first aircraft was delivered in 1944 and remained the sole example, as plenty of US-made bombers were by this stage available.