Its chief engineer from 1935 to 1959, he served on the RAAF's controlling body, the Air Board, for a record seventeen years, and has been credited with infusing operations with new standards of airworthiness.

Generally known as "Wack", or "EC" (to distinguish him from his elder brother, aircraft designer Lawrence James Wackett or "LJ"), his prominent chin and nose also earned him the nickname "Punch".

His trip home from England had been postponed at the last minute to enable him to be trained; he began instructing volunteers in 1926 at RAAF Station Richmond, New South Wales, and made Australia's first freefall descent from a military aircraft—an Airco DH.9—on 26 May.

The Chief of the Air Staff, Group Captain Richard Williams, himself made a successful jump on 5 August, to set "a good example" before making the wearing of parachutes compulsory for all aircrew.

Consisting of two Supermarine Seagull III single-engined amphibious biplanes and six aircrew, the flight was to examine and photograph the Papuan and New Guinean coasts as far north as Aitape and, if possible, Bougainville.

[2] Returning to Australia, he was promoted to squadron leader and became Director of Technical Services, an organisation within the RAAF's Supply Branch, in May 1935; the appointment made Wackett the Air Force's senior engineer.

[10] Ranked wing commander at the outbreak of World War II, Wackett immediately faced major supply challenges in his role as Director of Technical Services.

[11] He also drew on the advice and support of his brother Lawrence, who had established the RAAF's technical services organisation in the 1920s and now, having retired from the Air Force, headed the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC).

Its members, drawn from the aviation, medical, scientific and technical disciplines, were to study and report upon such factors as aircrew safety, comfort, fatigue, survival, motion sickness, decompression and hypoxia.

As well as members from governmental and scientific bodies, the committee included delegates from aircraft manufacturers such as de Havilland Australia and CAC, Lawrence Wackett acting as Chief Technical Advisor.

[14] Later that year, the two brothers joined the academics on the newly formed Australian Council for Aeronautics, established by Prime Minister John Curtin to advise government, educational and scientific organisations on technical developments in the aircraft industry.

[19] During the war, the Air Board oversaw expansion from a complement in 1939 of 246 obsolescent machines such as CAC Wirraways, Avro Ansons and Lockheed Hudsons, to a strength in 1945 of 5,620 sophisticated aircraft including Supermarine Spitfires, P-51 Mustangs, de Havilland Mosquitoes and B-24 Liberators; to support this force, the RAAF had provided all-through training for 18,000 technical staff, and further education for 35,000 more schooled initially outside the service.

A major facet of Plan D, adopted in June 1947, was its encouragement of local industry to design and build military trainers and produce more sophisticated combat aircraft under licence from overseas manufacturers.

[23] Wackett played a key role in establishing technical services as a distinct department within the RAAF, rather than forming part of the Supply Branch as in previous years.

Mindful of the increasing responsibility that was being placed on scientific and technical resources in the modern Air Force, he had raised the question of a specialist engineering branch immediately after the war, and in March 1946 gained broad approval for its establishment.

[2] Appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1951 King's Birthday Honours,[26] Wackett again worked closely with Air Vice Marshal Hewitt, now the Air Member for Supply and Equipment, to introduce the concept of acquiring spare parts based on "life-of-type", whereby the forecast number and type of spares necessary for an aircraft's projected service life would be ordered when it was first deployed, to reduce costs and delivery time.

[24] The establishment of a dedicated Technical Branch, which he founded in 1948, was a key factor in the RAAF developing the ability to successfully manage the maintenance and upgrade of such highly sophisticated aircraft as the General Dynamics F-111.