They provide about 150 flying displays a year, in Australia and in friendly countries around the Southeast Asian region.

The Central Flying School formed its first official aerobatic team in 1962, the Red Sales, using De Havilland Vampire Mk 35 jet trainers.

Towards the end of the 1980s, the Roulettes flying hours had to be reduced as the MB-326 fleet developed premature metal fatigue problems and a replacement aircraft type was investigated.

In 1989, with the new Pilatus PC-9 trainers starting to arrive and MB-326 airframe hours severely limited, the Roulettes flew just a single pair of Macchis.

The RAAF has since adopted this scheme (minus the "R") for all its PC-9 trainers, except for the PC-9s at ARDU and FAC,[clarification needed] which allows an aircraft to be swapped into or out of the team to equalise fleet airframe hours by simply repainting the tail.

A pilot begins with three months of intensive formation aerobatic training, starting with relatively simple manoeuvres (such as loops and rolls in echelon or line astern) performed at altitude, and progressing through more complex and demanding ones (such as corkscrews, ripple rolls and rollbacks), close formation line abreast aerobatics (which requires constant fine attention to power and trim settings), and eventually working up to the full six-aircraft display routines.