DAP (Bristol) Beaufort Restoration Project 


    
A9-102 in wartime service, similar to the Museum's Beaufort restoration project
 

The Australian Aircraft Restoration Group is pleased of announce its acquisition of major components of a DAP (Bristol) Beaufort Bomber, towards future restoration of a complete aircraft for static display at the Australian National Aviation Museum at Moorabbin.

Built by the Department of Aircraft Production, at Fisherman’s Bend,  Port Melbourne, there is currently no partial or complete example of a Beaufort on display anywhere in Victoria.

In March 1939, the British and Australian Governments announced that the twin engined Bristol Beaufort bomber, the prototype of which had first flown in the UK in October 1938, would be built for both the RAF and RAAF.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Australia embarked on a major industrialisation, with Australia’s first mass produced aircraft the Wirraway trainer, already being built at Port Melbourne by CAC,  the DAP established the Beaufort Division on adjoining land. At that time, the manufacturing of such a modern twin-engined high performance aircraft and its twin row 1200HP engines, was a major challenge to the Australian industry, 10 years before production of its first local car. Major industrial companies such as BHP and GMH contributed to the war effort with BHP’s Chairman Essington Lewis later being appointed Director of War Munitions for the Government, responsible for the DAP.

The 39,000 component parts were sub-contracted out to over 600 firms, and seven factories handled the major sub-assemblies which were then fed into the main assembly plants. The Beaufort program made significant use of existing workforce and skills in the railway workshops at Newport Victoria as well as SA and NSW, as well as training new employees on the production lines.

A  major impact on the nation’s society and future development, was the introduction and training of women on the production line workforce at the main assembly plants, of the eventual 8,500 DAP employees, more than one-third were women.

The first DAP Beaufort flew in August 1941, and was one of a batch of 180 ordered by the RAF for use in the Far East, but when Japan entered the war in December 1941, it was agreed that all Beauforts would be taken over by the RAAF for the defence of Australia,becoming its most successful and important medium bomber.

When production ceased in August 1944, a total of 700 Beauforts had been built. These aircraft served with numerous squadrons including Nos 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 32, and 100 and established an impressive operational record in operations against Japanese forces in New Guinea. They attacked shipping in all areas of the South-West Pacific and sank cruisers, destroyers and submarines, as well as bombing and strafing inland supply dumps and troops. They were also used for routine convoy protection and coastal reconnaissance.

Most of the Beauforts were phased out of service soon after the war, and today only three remain in various condition elsewhere in Australia, with one being rebuilt to fly in Queensland and another in storage with the AWM, while another two exist in overseas collections.

The construction of 700 DAP Beauforts and 755 CAC Wirraways are the crowning achievements of the local production of aircraft for the defence of Australia in WW2.

The Museum has acquired parts from A9-320 and A9-501 as the basis of its project, and is commencing its first public appeal for fund raising, to assist in further parts acquisition and the eventual restoration and display of the aircraft, to become one of six remaining world wide, and the only one in Victoria, along side the rare and restored DAP Beaufighter already in the museum’s collection.

This fund raising includes the intended acquisition of a completely restored cockpit from A9-150, being completed by Mr Ralph Cusack of  Brisbane who is restoring A9-141 in Brisbane.  http://www.beaufortrestoration.com.au/


 

The Museum's fully restored DAP Beaufort Cockpit A9-150 on display with sections of the centre and rear fuselage