As many readers will know, Australia's Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) designed and built a number of different airframes based upon the North American Aviation NA-16, a trainer which eventually evolved into the legendary T-6 Texan/Harvard. The Wirraway was one of CAC's more successful designs. A number of different Wirraway variants evolved, some of them armed, but the type primarily served in the training role within Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a function which it performed admirably between 1939 and 1959. While CAC built more than 750 Wirraways at their factory in Fisherman's Bend, near Melbourne, Victoria, the type is pretty rare today, with fewer than two dozen survivors in any recognizable form today, and of these, just a handful are presently capable of flight. This is why the recent news of Rodney Knights' expedition to recover the substantial remains of a Wirraway from Lake Corangamite near Melbourne, Victoria is such welcome news. The aircra
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A decaying sperm whale carcass that washed up on a Surf Coast beach could take days to remove, just as school holidays are expected to bring an influx of tourists to the area.
The sunburnt male sperm whale, measuring 18 metres long, was seen drifting in shallow waters along the coast for several days.
It triggered a shark warning for the surrounding area after washing up on the sand about one kilometre west of the Fairhaven Surf Life Saving Club on Tuesday morning.
The dead whale washed up on Fairhaven beach in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Credit:Paul Greene