Looking Back-AWA Aircraft Instruments

Looking Back-AWA Aircraft Instruments; By John McIlwaine AWA Historian

One of the little-known products made by AWA was the range of Aircraft Instruments for the WW11 war effort for supply to the Australian Aircraft manufacturers.

 Instruments for the Australian-made aircraft included the de Havilland Mosquito DH98 Bomber first build started in 1942 at DHA Bankstown NSW some 212 were built by 1944. The DAP Department of Aircraft Production Factories at Fisherman’s Bend Victoria and the Aircraft factory at Mascot Sydney built  700 Beaufort Bombers, 350 at each site by 1944.

In addition, some 364 Beaufighters were built at both Fisherman’s Bend and Mascot, and serial numbers of both Beauforts and Beaufighters alternated; odd numbers were built at Fisherman’s Bend and even numbers at Mascot. An interesting insight AWA colleague and fellow member Ross Stell's father as a Railways engineer was involved in the aircraft production, he was seconded to the DAP and sent to Bristol in the UK to learn all about building the Beauforts, on his return, his notebooks recall he was sent to Melbourne to help establish the production at Fisherman’s Bend, Ross has many memories of that time living just opposite Luna Park. St Kilda.

The family moved back to Sydney, where his father worked at the Mascot Aircraft factory which was built at the Aerodrome, (Sydney Kingsford Smith) he became a senior inspector, checking that all components conformed to specifications he had been given by Bristol. In both states sub-assemblies were made in the Railway workshops; in NSW at the Chullora Workshops, and in Victoria at Newport Workshops and Islington Workshops (SA).

Ross whilst at Primary School can recall the time his father took him to work one day so he could watch these big aircraft being assembled from the sub-assemblies

Also during 1936-46, the CAC Commonwealth Aircraft Corp at Fisherman’s Bend Lorimar Street Factory built 755 of the Wirraway aircraft. (Wirraway is an aboriginal meaning for challenge) The Wirraway was a training aircraft and general-purpose military aircraft; it was an Australian development of the North American NA-16 trainer

 The Railway workshops in both Victoria and Chullora Sydney also contributed with sub-assemblies for wartime aircraft production, and of note, the original Fisherman’s Bend Aircraft factory location in the 1930s became the Headquarters and assembly line for Holden cars from 1936.

The Radio Electric Works at Ashfield NSW was the site for many additional activities for the War effort in addition to a large range of Wireless communication Transmitters, Receivers, Radar, navigational aids, and allied components, an urgent demand was placed on the company to manufacture locally aircraft instruments never ever before undertaken in Australia. With the mother country threatened with invasion during 1940 and shipping menaced by enemy submarines, Australia had little choice but to make preparations and contribute what it could to the war effort.

During the war period, 1939-45 and isolated from the rest of the world with little hope of obtaining the equipment and components to make the equipment, additional factory annexes were set up to produce the necessary tooling and components to manufacture a range of aircraft instruments, these comprised Directional Gyro, Gyro Horizon, Sensitive Altimeter, Rate–of-climb Indicator, Air Speed Indicator, Altimeters, some 70.000 aircraft Instruments were made by the company during the period.

These highly sophisticated complex instruments required special conditions to manufacture the delicate Sperry instruments under licence, extensive tooling, specialised operations, and skilled staff to fabricate, assemble, and test the instruments for fitment to Australian aircraft during the war.

 In addition to instruments, artillery directors, Parallescopes, and Aldis lamps were being made during this period along with the development of Radar in WW11.

Previously the men and women at the Radio Electric Works had only been previously employed in the manufacture of speakers, transformers, telephones, and moulded parts and found themselves up against the intricacies of Aircraft Instruments,

The AWA Aircraft factory provided one of the most interesting and credible pages in the history of Australia’s war effort and a credit to the Australian staff dedicated to this wartime work.

Post-war other electronic equipment designed developed and manufactured in Australia by AWA were Aviation Aids, the DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) was invented by James ‘Gerry' Gerrand and under the supervision of Edward George ’Taffy,' Bowen while employed as Chief of the division of Radiophysics of the CSIRO.

The AWA original engineered version was developed in the 1950s, operating in the 200 MHz VHF band, this Australian domestic version was referred to by the Federal Department of Civil Aviation as DME (D) or DME Domestic, and the later international version was adopted by ICAO as DME (1) DME is similar in principle to secondary radar ranging function, except the role of the equipment in the aircraft and on the ground are reversed. DME was a post-war development based on the identification friend or foe (IFF) systems of WW11.

To maintain compatibility, DME is functionally identical to the distant measuring component of TACAN, (Tactical Air Navigation System) used by military aircraft.

 Also the Doppler VOR air navigation beacon, this equipment saw worldwide recognition and was licenced in the ’70s to DECCA Navigation Company Ltd, of England to sell its Australian-designed Doppler VOR beacons in the UK, Western Europe, and in certain African and near countries.

AWA DME often called ‘’milestones in the sky’ ’was updated in the ’70s, operating in conjunction with the AWA manufactured ground beacons provides the pilot with continuous digital indications of distance, speed, and time to station of his aircraft,

Over 100 of these beacons were in service in the ’70s throughout Australia and Papua New Guinea; in addition AWA airborne DME is used by aircraft of our three Defence Services, all Australian airlines, and a number of General Aviation aircraft.

DME transponders are usually paired with an azimuth guidance system to provide aircraft with a two-dimensional capability. A typical combination is a DME collocated with a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) transmitter in a single ground station.

When this occurs, the frequencies of the VOR and DME equipment are paired, such configuration enables an aircraft to determine its azimuth angle and distance from the station. A VORTAC (a VOR co-located with a TACAN) installation provides the same capabilities to civil aircraft but also provides a 2-D navigation capability to military aircraft.

The Australian Government developed and manufactured the TV-VASIS landing aid system which was also offered for sale internationally by AWA  during the ’70s was in operation at 94 major airports in Australia and New Zealand and was one of only two systems that was endorsed by ICAO.

The T-VASIS is an accurate and flexible system that provides guidance information for the safe operation of all existing airline aircraft irrespective of size. Sophisticated yet rugged specialised test instruments for VOR installations displayed by AWA already found an export market in the UK, Sweden, Austria, and Indonesia at the time.

The development and research of fibre optics in Australia by AWA in the 70s would also have a profound effect on the future direction of electronic and telecommunication transmission equipment.

Acknowledge: AWA Publications, AWA Veterans Archives, John McIlwaine AWA history files.

Wikipedia references. Input from Ross Stell former long-time staff of AWA Ashfield.

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