page_title: RAAF Base Townsville
section_title: Post-war era
hierarchical_section_title: RAAF Base Townsville / History / Post-war era
caption_attribution_description: English: Cyclone Althea (1971) track. Uses the color scheme from the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The points show the location of each storm at six-hour intervals. The colour represents the storm's maximum sustained wind speeds as classified in the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (see below), and the shape of the data points represent the nature of the storm. Saffir–Simpson scale Tropical depression≤38 mph≤62 km/h Category 3111–129 mph178–208 km/h Tropical storm39–73 mph63–118 km/h Category 4130–156 mph209–251 km/h Category 174–95 mph119–153 km/h Category 5≥157 mph≥252 km/h Category 296–110 mph154–177 km/h Unknown Storm type Tropical cyclone Subtropical cyclone Extratropical cyclone / Remnant low / Tropical disturbance
context_page_description: RAAF Base Townsville is a Royal Australian Air Force air base located in Garbutt, 2 nautical miles west of Townsville in Queensland, Australia. It is the headquarters for No. 1 Wing Australian Air Force Cadets and, along with Lavarack Barracks, establishes Townsville as a key military centre. The base's airfield is shared with the Townsville Airport.
context_section_description: When hostilities ceased in August 1945, operations rapidly wound down throughout the Townsville military aviation complex, and buildings were being dismantled and sold at auction in the following months. RAAF Garbutt had always been intended as a permanent base, and after the war it shrank back to the size of the base originally planned in 1939 and constructed by late 1940. Some wartime hangars remained in service, and at least one Butler hangar was relocated to the eastern perimeter of Garbutt after Stockroute closed. A large "igloo" or vaulted hangar was erected beside it. No. 11 Squadron briefly operated Catalinas from Townsville in 1948–49, then in 1949 Garbutt became the base for No.10 Reconnaissance Squadron, which operated Avro Lincolns from the field on long-range maritime reconnaissance patrols, with one aircraft usually detached to Darwin.
  With the other airfields in the Townsville suburbs closed, the name of the base reverted to its early form of RAAF Townsville in 1951. The Lincolns required a longer runway, and in 1952 further land to the north was acquired from the Town Common to extend the north-south runway. In March 1956 Cyclone Agnes struck Townsville, damaging buildings at the RAAF base. The Lincoln aircraft were hangared in the two large wartime hangars during the storm, but this was not adequate: the vaulted hangar was damaged, and subsequently had to be demolished. A Lincoln was destroyed and another severely damaged in the hangar failure. Since this experience, aircraft have been flown out of Townsville during tropical cyclones. In 1962, the Lincolns were replaced by Lockheed P-2 Neptunes.
  The civil airport, which had operated limited services throughout the war, expanded after 1945, and the airlines moved their operations into some of the wartime hangars relocated from the Stockroute complex. Several of these buildings remained in service for more than twenty years. The 1940 control tower on Hangar 75 functioned until 1960, when it was replaced by the present brick control tower. Major damage was done to the civil terminal by the even more severe Cyclone Althea in 1971, and there was also some damage to the RAAF base. Learning from the 1956 experience, the Neptune aircraft had been flown out. An international terminal was built in 1981, and in 1987 a new domestic terminal replaced the last of the 1942 hangars. In 1990 the Federal Airports Corporation acquired the piece of RAAF land occupied by the domestic and international terminals.
  The role of RAAF Base Townsville changed in the 1960s and 1970s with the general northward shift of Australia's defence bases. In 1960, the majority of Australia's armed forces were still based near the southern capital cities, as they had been since the 1880s, but experience in Malaya, Sarawak and Vietnam changed the emphasis of defence policy to preparedness for limited regional conflicts. The level of military aviation activity at Townsville began to increase after the establishment in 1966 of Lavarack Barracks, which steadily grew to become Australia's largest Army base, and the Headquarters of the Third Task Force. In 1976, No. 35 Squadron was based at Townsville in support of Army operations. However, the following year No. 10 Squadron was relocated to RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia, and over thirty years of maritime reconnaissance operations from Townsville ceased.
  For the next twenty years No. 35 Squadron operated Caribou transports and Iroquois helicopters in support of the Australian Army, but has now been disbanded and incorporated into No. 38 Squadron, performing the same role. In 1989, No. 9 Squadron with Black Hawk helicopters was briefly based at RAAF Townsville, before handing over its aircraft to the Australian Army and disbanding, as part of a new policy of placing battlefield helicopters under Army command. The Army occupied dedicated facilities at RAAF Base Townsville, and the 5th Aviation Regiment now operates Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters from a complex in the south-west corner of the base.
  Changes in operational requirements from t
caption: Storm path of Cyclone Althea (1971)
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