RAAF bare bases

The Royal Australian Air Force currently maintains three bare bases in remote areas of Northern Australia.

These bases were developed in the 1980s and 1990s in line with the Defence of Australia Policy to enhance the RAAF's ability to conduct combat operations from the Australian mainland.

In December 2008 RAAF Learmonth was rapidly activated to support border protection patrols conducted by Lockheed AP-3C Orions.

[1] The RAAF maintains caches of catering equipment, bedding and defence stores at each of the bare bases so that they can be rapidly activated.

The size of these caches was reduced by 25 percent in 2012, and the RAAF's newspaper Air Force stated that the service was considering storing all the supplies at a central location in the future.