Government Aircraft Factories

Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) was the name of an aircraft manufacturer owned by the Government of Australia based at Fishermans Bend, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria. It had its origins in the lead-up to World War II, during which it was known as the Department of Aircraft Production (DAP). In 1987, GAF was reorganised and renamed as Aerospace Technologies of Australia (ASTA) then privatised. ASTA subsequently formed the nucleus of Boeing Australia.

The entity was established just before the outbreak of World War II when the Australian government recognised that supplies of aircraft from traditional sources could no longer be assured. To ensure supply of aircraft, in 1939 the government set up the new Department of Supply and Development with an Aircraft Construction Branch within that department; both organisations officially came into being on 1 July 1939. The organisation was set up specifically to produce the Bristol Beaufort under licence in Australia. After an evaluation process to assess the operational needs of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), a British Air Mission sent to Australia recommended that the Beaufort be manufactured for delivery to both the RAAF and the Royal Air Force (RAF).

It is noteworthy that at this stage (mid-1939) an Australian aircraft industry barely existed. The private-enterprise Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation had by that time completed three of its first product, the Wirraway, and was in the process of building the prototype of its second type, the Wackett. Both of these were single-engined aircraft and the Wackett was not an advanced design by any criterion. The other major aircraft 'manufacturer', de Havilland Australia, had up to that time mainly assembled aircraft manufactured by its parent company imported into Australia as parts, commencing the delivery of 20 Tiger Moths, built from imported fuselages and locally manufactured wings, to the RAAF in May 1939. Total production in Australia to mid-1939 of all types of aircraft was certainly less than 100, and may have been less than seventy. Many of these were "one-offs" and the vast majority were of "wood-and-fabric" construction like the Tiger Moth. By contrast the Beaufort was a large twin-engined all-metal aircraft of advanced design for the time.

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