Delamere Air Weapons Range

Government sources

United States

“Enhancing” the Australian-U.S. Defense Relationship: A Guide to U.S. Policy, Thomas-Durell Young, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 17, 1997.

Delamere Air Weapons Range. Located 80 nautical miles southwest of RAAF Base Tindal (which itself is 330 kilometers south of Darwin), is the RAAF's principal air weapons range. Delamere is approximately one-half million acres (approximately 30 miles by 40 miles). It has the advantage of having no significant environmental limitations and is located well outside of the cyclone belt. On the downside, the RAAF finds its flat terrain a limit to training. The RAAF is planning to expand the range by purchasing the rest of the Delamere Station. The Department of Defence has not yet endorsed the concept and the
RAAF is considering going alone as did the army in pressing for the purchase of Bradshaw. The RAAF's reluctance in the early 1990s to having U.S. aircraft using RAAF Base Tindal and Delamere has softened markedly. Senior RAAF Base Tindal leadership stated that U.S. access and usage are welcome, Australian resource limitations considered.

Parliamentary sources

Australia’s Defence Relations with the United States, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, 22 May 2006.

4.20    Defence continued by describing the nature of the JCTC [Joint Combined Training Centre] when they stated:

A mature JCTC should not be seen as a test range or even a series of ranges. The JCTC should function as a training system that links training management systems, training areas, simulations, headquarters and units. It is proposed that the JCTC should be linked to the US Pacific Command’s Pacific Warfighting Center and the US Joint Force Command’s Joint National Training Capability as part of the US Global Joint Training Infrastructure. The JCTC concept envisages the enhancement of a number of Australia’s ranges, including SWBTA, Bradshaw Field Training Area and the Delamere  Range Facility. Ultimately these ranges could be networked through a series of interoperable systems and interfaces, enabled by advances in information technology.

 Analysis

Coming To A Country Very Close To You, Brendan Nicholson, The Age, 19 November 2005.

Giant American strategic bombers will practise long-range raids on Australia under an agreement enabling the US to "project power" into the region. The bombers will hit the Delamere bombing range in the Northern Territory under an agreement signed yesterday at the Australia-United States ministerial summit in Adelaide.  Training will start in the new year and involve bombers travelling a considerable distance to use the ranges and flying home without landing. Others would land and use facilities at Darwin.

B-52s participate in Green Lightning, Australian air show, Military Press, 28 March 2007.

Andersen Airmen flew to the land 'down under' this week to demonstrate the capability and flexibility of the B-52 Stratofortress bomber to their Australian partners. They completed a series of scheduled Green Lightning exercise sorties at the Delamere Bombing Range while also providing aerial flyovers for the Australian International Airshow 2007 in Victoria, Australia. The missions over Australia were flown under two different types of mission profiles. The Green Lightning missions were 12-hour, round-trip flights into the Delamere Bombing Range beginning and ending here. Later missions saw a B-52, along with a KC-135 Stratotanker for support, landing at the Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin to fly sorties supporting the Australian air show. "We departed Andersen and received 80,000 pounds of fuel from the KC-135 tanker accompanying us," said Capt. Mike Maginness, a B-52 co-pilot with the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron. "We continued our mission to the Delamere Bomb Range where we received permission to employ six BDU-50 inert bombs." This was the third time Andersen-based bombers have participated in the Green Lightning exercise. B-2 Spirit bombers completed the first Green Lightning exercise from Guam in July 2006, while the first group of B-52s completed their sorties in October 2006.

Project coordinator: Richard Tanter
11 June 2008