Despite the efforts of some government ministers and at least one CAS, Air Marshal John McCauley, to prevent members serving more than three to five years consecutively on the board, no arbitrary term limits were enforced.

[6] The arguably disproportionate sway held by technical services continued with Wackett's successor, Air Vice-Marshal Ernie Hey, who served on the board for twelve years.

[22] Part of the rationale was the youth of the Air Board's officers—Williams, Goble and McBain were all aged thirty or under—and their relative lack of administrative experience; it also gave the Army and Navy a greater say in how the new service should run.

[29] In accordance with a proposal by Goble at the first board meeting, held over at the time but subsequently approved, upon its formation the Air Force adopted the RAF's rank structure.

[30] The board's three officers, along with their staff of ten, were based at the newly raised Air Force Headquarters co-located with the Department of Defence at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne.

[30] The Air Council had sought approval from The Crown to use the adjective "Royal" for the AAF before it formed in March; this was granted in May and took effect when the necessary order by the Governor-General was promulgated on 13 August.

[39] Having inherited World War I-era Imperial Gift aircraft on the RAAF's formation, the Air Board ordered Australia's first modern fighter, the Bristol Bulldog, in January 1929.

[20] Goble took over as CAS from Williams in December 1922, and for the next seventeen years the pair alternated in the position, an arrangement that "almost inevitably fostered an unproductive rivalry" according to Alan Stephens.

[2] Neither officer who filled this position over the next decade, Bill Anderson and Adrian Cole, had logistics training, and the official post-war history concluded that they relied heavily on the specialist knowledge of their experienced subordinate, the RAAF Director of Transport and Equipment, George Mackinolty.

[45] The Air Board considered RAAF funding so low in mid-1924 that it was existing on a "hand to mouth" basis and could not maintain its program; Goble told a defence committee meeting with Prime Minister Stanley Bruce that the service had "two machines fit for war".

[47] As CAS, Williams, who maintained personal correspondence with successive RAF chiefs, Trenchard and Sir John Salmond, as allies in the fight for an independent air force, received much of the credit for seeing off these threats of merger.

[50] The board was able to embark on an expansion program in 1934 thanks to an increase in overall defence spending by the Australian government, acquiring new bases, squadrons, and aircraft, including the Avro Anson, the RAAF's first low-wing monoplane and its first with a retractable undercarriage.

[63][64] Goble was replaced in February 1940 by Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, RAF, who focused on rapidly expanding the RAAF to meet the needs of EATS and believed that Australia's huge land mass would make a functional command system unwieldy.

[82][81] According to the official history of Australia in the war, air officers commanding the headquarters could only attempt to "retard the centrifugal forces affecting Australian disposition, and repair the worst administrative difficulties arising from wide dispersion".

[83] Supporting General Douglas MacArthur's "island-hopping" campaign in the Pacific demanded an airfield construction capability that the Air Force did not possess at the onset of war.

Author Norman Ashworth observed that splitting the logistical functions of the Air Board in this manner appeared to be a "uniquely Australian" experiment, and it was not inconceivable that the organisation had been "tailored" to suit the talents of the highly regarded Mackinolty and Wackett.

[93] In March and April 1943 the government considered dissolving the Air Board and unifying control of the RAAF under a single commander senior to both Jones and Bostock, a move supported by the Commander-in-Chief Australian Military Forces, General Blamey, who noted that a similar arrangement was already in place for the Army, but this never eventuated.

Prime Minister John Curtin vetoed the decision on the grounds that such changes in higher command required agreement from the Americans; MacArthur and Kenney subsequently made clear that they did not consider Hewitt "an adequate replacement" for Bostock.

1 TAF) attempted to resign their commissions to protest the relegation of RAAF fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions in the South West Pacific.

[102] Hewitt believed the RAAF was in danger of losing some of its best staff through rapid, unplanned demobilisation, and recommended it stabilise the workforce for two years at 20,000 while it reviewed post-war requirements.

[106] As AMP Hewitt was also responsible for establishing a post-war RAAF reserve contingent, including CAF squadrons for home defence so that permanent forces were able to deploy overseas as necessary.

Wackett was disappointed by the limits imposed by the Air Board on career advancement for his personnel: the General Duties Branch in the late 1940s was permitted to maintain thirty-seven officer positions of group captain and above, but the Technical Branch was only allowed fourteen such slots, even though both departments had an almost identical overall strength of just under 400 staff; the anomaly led Wackett to submit a dissenting report on the subject to the Air Board.

[116][117] Despite the major reductions in personnel and equipment in the immediate post-war period, the Air Force was soon committed to a series of overseas ventures in concert with its Cold War allies.

81 Wing's commander was responsible to BCAIR for duties related to the occupation but could deal directly with Air Force Headquarters on RAAF personnel matters such as pay, postings, and promotions.

90 Wing, owing to the personal intervention of the CAS, Air Marshal Jones, who was mindful of repeating the experience of World War II, when RAAF units and personnel based in Britain had been absorbed by the RAF, rather than operating as a national group led by high-ranking Australian officers.

[125][126] The Gloster Meteor jets flown in Korea were the first type in Australian service to be fitted with ejector seats; the Air Board soon ordered their employment in all high-performance RAAF aircraft.

[140][141] The RAAF underwent major organisational change under Jones' replacement as CAS, Air Marshal Sir Donald Hardman, RAF, between October 1953 and February 1954, when it transitioned from the wartime area command structure to a functional control system.

[147] In June 1963, to counteract a perceived threat from Indonesia out of which the Labor opposition was making political capital in the run-up to a Federal election, Prime Minister Menzies instructed the CAS, Air Marshal Sir Val Hancock, to investigate replacements for the Canberra.

Although finding the US TFX, forerunner of the General Dynamics F-111, the most suitable aircraft, he recommended purchase of the already operational North American A-5 Vigilante as the simplest way to satisfy the requirement.

[163] According to Alan Stephens, Rowland considered that the Air Board's "collective wisdom" had been generally beneficial to the RAAF, and believed the new arrangements led to "'paralysis and arrogation of decision making', and empire building in the Public Service component".