This atmospheric painting is one of a series of Royal Australian Naval aircraft associated with HMAS Melbourne and HMS Sydney. The powerful Gannets, capable of carrying two homing torpedoes internally and sixteen wing-mounted rockets, operated alongside SeaVenom jet fighters. They were the first aircraft aboard HMAS Melbourne and the Gannets flew with 816 and 817 Sqdns. They were unique in design, providing the safety and reliability of a twin engined aircraft with the aerodynamic avantages of a single. Each half of its double-Mamba engine drove its own four-bladed propeller, sharing concentric contra-rotating shafts.

As the story supplied with the reproduction recounts, Fairey Aircraft in Britain had a long association with naval aircraft design, one of the earliest being the famous Fairey IIID record-breaking aircraft and the later WW2 Swordfish.