Wagga Wagga Airport - History

History

During 1939, the RAAF were looking to establish an inland training base. Pursuing this, Group Captain A.H."Harry" Cobby (our top scoring World War One ace) contacted Wagga resident Hughie Condon and asked him to suggest possible sites suitable for the establishment of an RAAF station. Condon was well suited to the task, being regional Examiner of Airmen with the Dept. of Defence. He recommended a site at the village of Forest Hill, this being situated about five nautical miles East of Wagga. The site was situated above the Murrumbidgee flood plain and was of suitable dimension. It was already serviced by rail, offered frontage to the Sturt Highway, and was sufficiently distant from the town of Wagga Wagga. Cobby flew to inspect the site, arriving in an RAAF Avro Anson. He agreed with Condon's assessment and the go-ahead was soon given. The identified land was resumed from the Brunskill and Lyons families in the first half of 1939 and before long, a Fearnes bus was shuttling workers to the site. It is of note that this was planned as a permanent base and preceded the Empire Air Training Scheme. At this time the Wagga Wagga Council (not yet a city) operated a civilian aerodrome. This was located on Hammond Avenue, East Wagga. Many other councils had hoped to host the new base. The Mayor of Junee, H.G.Weaver, claimed that Junee was a better choice. He said that Junee was less susceptable to fog, had flatter surrounding terrain and could offer railway workshops (the roundhouse) for aircraft repair. The mayor of Narromine was unhappy that his suggested site was not even inspected. The building layout was carefully designed so as to enable the aircraft landing area to have potential for 'all over' operations. Aircraft could, potentially touch down anywhere, in any direction, according to the pilots operational needs. RAAF Forest Hill became operational on 29 July 1940 and initially was home to 2SFTS. Service Flying Training Schools conducted advanced training of graduates of the Elementary Flying Training Schools. At the close of WW2, civilian flying recommenced. A decision was made to accommodate civilian flying operations at Forest Hill. A Bellman hangar was allocated for civilian use and Mobil/Vacuum installed an aircraft refuelling facility. At this time the council aerodrome on Hammond Avenue fell into disuse. With new transport aircraft, such as the Convair Metropolitan, coming into widespread use, it was decided to construct a bitumen runway. This was timed so as to be completed for Queen Elizabeth IIs visit to Wagga in 1954.

On 28 January 1992 the Wagga Wagga City Council secured a 30 year lease from the Commonwealth of Australia which included $2 million dollars to upgrade the airport's runway which can handle a Boeing 737.

In June 2009, Wagga Wagga Airport was listed third for the world's strangest sounding airports.

In December 2009, the airport had undergone a $2.2 million upgrade to increase its capacity for future growth and to improve the security at the airport.

On 27 May 2010, Anthony Albanese announced that the federal government would provided funding worth A$1.05 million, as part of the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, to the Wagga Wagga City Council for the installation of the A$1.63 million Instrument Landing System (ILS), which were only found in all of Australia's capital cities. The ILS was commissioned by Airservices Australia on 16 December 2010.