The Westland Western Australia "Wallaby" was a license-built version of the more famous
Westland Wyvern.
Unfortunately, these aircraft were ordered during an age of austerity under an ill-fated, contentious government.
Westland Western Australia was one of the country's more storied manufacturers, starting out building Avro 504s on license under the name Westland Aerocraft Western Australia. This was often abbreviated which led to much confusion.
The company became Westland Western Australia shortly after lengthy "Cease and Desist" letters arrived in the post. This change was quite cleverly spun in PR as a "Modernisation Programme".
The firm's technical expertise and experience mass-producing American Thunderbolts during the war made the future appear quite promising. Sadly, this promise would fail to be kept.
The aircraft while re-worked and produced locally still showed some of that famous Westland panache` but obvious native Australian engineering influences cannot be ignored.
Because of cut-backs, many economies had to be made, starting with cutting back the enormous and quite costly fin and rudder into something far more cost-effective.
The canopy, while still a bubble-top, was a new design using sub-standard recycled beer bottles instead of the pricey perspex mandated in the original specs.
The Wallaby was fitted with a standard 4 blade prop because the signature Wyvern contra-prop was considered an unnecessary extravagance.
The tail hook was beefed up in the hope this would cure the aircraft's propensity to deck-loop.
However the penny-pinching move with the most negative downstream effect was replacing the "money-is-no-object"
Armstrong Siddeley Python with the far more economical Armstrong Siddeley Sydney "Assp". This indigenous engine was a half-baked hybrid between a radial and a pure turbo-prop known as a turboed-radial-prop.
The Assp engine was so unsuccessful that it never had another practical application and its failure forced Armstrong Siddeley's Sydney concern into receivership.
Speaking of receiving, the Wallaby was initially recieved quite well by the RAN when it entered service. However, good-will for the type quickly eroded once flight operations commenced and pilots realized just how impotent the new fighter-bomber was. It could barely get off the deck carrying a combat load and even then ceiling was limited to only 2250 cm metric or about 75 feet, hardly optimal.
Once the Wallaby's lack of a performance envelope was reported in the Australian press, this caused the demise of the government which never had a good relationship with the media to begin with.
The aircraft is shown here wearing tail code ZZ which is less an identifier and more an indication of the type's somnambulance. Supposedly the Assp engine sounded like it was snoring when the fuel mix was set to lean for long-range cruise.
The number 114 on the nose suggests over one hundred of these carrier-based barges were built.
Oft derided by crews as the "Wallow Bee", RAN brass chose to interpret this epithet as "Well, I'll Be!" and forced the Wallaby to soldier, err sailor on far longer than it should have.
At least it was a handsome aircraft because it followed the design maxim that
it is better to look good than to feel good. It wasn't poor performance that would ultimately doom the Wallaby but a new, even more tight-fisted government that resorted to extreme measures enforcing fiscal responsibility.
Of course, such punitive policy was bound to lead to public protest.
But public protest would be to no avail and the Westland Western Australia Wallabies were withdrawn from service and scrapped.
Nothing exists of this on-the-cheap ship-board fighter today except a short-run Red-in-the-Face Roo kit which is no longer available either in stores or on
TV the Tele. This Wallaby model is depicted gamely lofting a torpedo, a mission best accomplished in the imagination.
However, memories of this RAN also-ran linger to this day in the nightmares of those pilots who flew the woe-begone Wallaby.
Brian da Basher