For anyone who frequents the western suburbs of Melbourne, this sight should be familiar.
Located beside the Princes Freeway at Laverton, these aircraft hangars and control tower are all that remains of the airfield that once operated at the RAAF Williams base. Two runways once existed: closest to the freeway was runway 17/35, facing roughly north-south and 1056 metres long, and at a right angle was runway 05/23 which was 1526 metres in length.
The airfield dates back to 1920 when the 160 acre site was acquired by the RAAF, with aircraft manufacturing commencing on the site in 1926. By end of the Second World War flight operations at Laverton had intensified, with various jet fighters and bombers stationed at the airfield, including Vampires, Sabres, Meteors and Canberras.
As for the control tower itself, it has an interesting history as one of the former air force technicians describes:
This tower was originally the jet engine testing facility for the Rolls Royce Avon jet engines used in the RAAF Sabre aircraft in the 1950’s. The Building was subsequently converted into a ATC control tower in 1980 by RAAF No. 1 Aircraft Depot technicians, I was a member of the installation team.
The CA-27 Sabre jet fighter designed and built by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) at Fishermans Bend, Melbourne. Based upon the North American Aviation F-86F Sabre, the Australian variant was built around the Rolls-Royce Avon engine, instead of the General Electric J47 that powered the original jet. Today one Australian built aircraft is still in flying condition: serial number A94-983 has been restored by the Temora Aviation Museum and is see at airshows and flying displays around Australia.
The Avon RA-7 jet engine was another instance of Australian companies building foreign equipment under licence, with a total of 218 Avon engines being built by CAC. The Mk. 26 was used on the Sabre, while the Mk. 109 Avon was used on the Australian-built Canberra jet bomber. The Temora Aviation Museum also has an example of the latter engine, being serial number 3285.
Back at the test site, the main building contained a large set of baffles, since removed.
Located on the second storey, the baffle room opens out to the exterior via the roller door.
Back at ground level was the main testing room.
Unfortunate the conversion to control tower stripped out anything of interest, such as engine mounts or exhaust ducting.
The other side of the wall appears to be where the exhaust led.
A secondary building was located a short distance away, and contained I assume were fuel tanks for the jet engines under test.
The conversion of the test building to a control tower was relatively simple: a steel and glass structure was just placed onto the roof of the building, with lightweight wall cladding, and lots of glass.
By the time the tower was complete in 1980, the RAAF mission had changed to protecting northern Australia, with Laverton falling into a support role, as the RAAFs modern jets such as the Mirage III, F-111, and F/A-18 Hornet were based at airfields elsewhere in the country.
One role the airfield retained was hosting the RAAF Laverton Air Show, which continued until flight operations officially ceased in September 1996. The last aircraft at Laverton departed in February 1998, being a de Havilland Vampire jet from the RAAF museum fleet.
Since the closure of the airfield, suburban development has filled the paddocks to the south of the freeway, now unhindered by aircraft noise. The tower itself has been heavily vandalised, with the glass windows shattered and much of the wall panels and floor scattered around the nearby area.
The airfield land itself was sold in 1998 to property developer Cedar Woods for $10 million, and in 2007 the area was given a new suburb name – “Williams Landing”. Removal of the north end of the runway commenced in 2010, with the control tower finally demolished in March 2011. Today houses continue to creep south towards the freeway.
More links to read
- Runway details
- Wikipedia on the CAC Sabre jet fighter
- More about the Avon Mk. 26 jet engine
- Photos of aircraft at the airfield (Airliners.net and JetPhotos.net)
Good article Marcus. I’ve driven past many times and your photos and article give a good overview of its historical importance. I wonder if any effort will be made by the developer to display its history eg even some simple photoboards in a park with images and explanation of the development of the airfield?
Minor point is that it is beside the “Princes” Freeway, not the “Princess” Freeway.
Given developers these days I wouldn’t be surprised if they put houses right up against the railway line: on the opposite side of the freeway the ‘Waterhaven’ estate by Hallmarc Developments is cramming houses on a narrow strip of land between Skeleton Creek and 5 metre high noise barriers.
For Williams Landing, they mention the history of the site on their website, but their master plan shows not much else of the airfield is retained:
http://www.williamslanding.com.au/About_Williams_Landing.asp
Seem to be a classic case of developments being named after what they destroy…
As for the spelling of the “Princes” Freeway I’m usually a pedant on that point – too bad I can’t fire my current proofreader, as it is me!
[…] A few months ago I took a look at the control tower that once stood sentry over the former RAAF Williams airfield in the Melbourne suburb of Laverton – today I’m […]
As much of a shame it is to see things abandoned and destroyed, it CAN be given a new life!!
A few friends and myself from around geelong and melbourne run a short film business, LoneSoldier Films, Check us out on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LoneSoldierFilms
And this looks like one hell of a filming location for one of our up coming films!! Does anyone own it, or if not, is it publicly accessible?
Cheers!
-Charles
The aircraft hangars and such are all Air Force land, so can’t be accessed. The control tower was on private land, but has since been demolished. The only thing left is the taxiways that have yet to be built on, but even they are disappearing quickly:
http://wongm.com/2011/09/heritage-listed-aircraft-hangars-raaf-williams-laverton/
is it possible to get permission from a certain individual to film a movie in a certain section of the building?
Unfortunately there is nothing left of the old control tower: it went in March 2011. As for the disused aircraft hangars, they are all on land still used by the RAAF: I doubt they would let outsiders visit.
However, there is an aircraft hangar down the road at Werribee that is managed by heritage group: they would be much more likely to work something out for you:
http://b24australia.org.au/
Thanks for this info Marcus, which has helped me string together some photos. I landed at Williams in December 1979, in a RAAF Caribou, for a home Christmas visit before returning to work in Malaysia. Handy to Melbourne!
Sad to see the abandonment and degradation of the site over the years, but that’s progress I guess.
The other day I found a photo showing what the airfield looked like back in 1972 – this view minus the houses should be a little more familiar!
http://www.airliners.net/photo/1595528/L
In between the closure of the airfield and the demolition of the tower building, it was in use for a while by a company running motorcycle licence testing and training courses. They used a portable building placed beside the tower as a classroom, but the tower building itself was used as storage and workshop space for the fleet of motorcycles they used. That’s where I got my licence.
But I also remember a previous visit in 1983 or 1984, when I was a cadet in the Air Training Corps – at that time the only regular flying at the base was the Glider Club, which used a launching winch which I think was at the runway 17 end. There were still a fair few planes there, but they were mostly a large group of decommissioned Hercules transports that were lined up out the front of the main hangars.
Thanks for the info regarding the motorcycle training school. As for the glider club, until now I’ve only known of the usual tow planes they use to get up in the air – a launching winch sounds a pretty cool piece of kit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliding#Winch_launching
Actually, I just took a look at the site via Google Earth – on the Runway 35 threshold you can still see some odd painted lines surrounding the number 35 – these are actually the markings that were used by the motorcycle school as the testing course!
https://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=point+cook&ll=-37.868366,144.748242&spn=0.001645,0.003484&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hnear=Point+Cook+Victoria&gl=au&t=h&z=19
Ah – I’ve seen those markings in Google Maps before, and wondering what they were doing there! Here is a screenshot of said markings, in case Google updates their imagery in future.
It is worth noting that the former course of Geelong Road ran through RAAF Laverton prior the Federal Government acquiring it in 1939 to expand the airfield. The former runway 05/23 (the bearings of the runways, minus a zero by the way) roughly corresponds to the route. The old route then crossed the rail line at ‘Hopper’s Crossing’ to continue to Werribee …
http://mrv.ozroads.com.au/southwest/M1princes/old.htm
The deviation was therefore federally funded and included an overpass at the rail line (since modified/rebuilt several times) and underpass at Merton Street (Explosives Road) which has since been lost in the mists of time – presumably when the Kororoit Creek Road interchange was built around 1970.
A strange quirk was the Point Cook Road overpass over the deviation-turned-freeway which was presumably opened in the early 70’s along with the interchange, but has a design matching the Maltby Bypass overpasses from the early 60’s in terms of construction and bridge barriers – completely different to other freeway overpasses of the same vintage.
The history of the Princes Freeway around the Laverton area is quite interesting – the underpasses at Merton Street and Kororoit Creek Road served explosives traffic between a wharf at Point Cook and the storage area at Deer Park:
https://www.railgeelong.com/location/princes-freeway,-laverton
As for Maltby Bypass-style overpass at Point Cook Road, the Main Roads Victoria website has the opening date as 1971 – the Lara overpass was completed the same year, with the more modern looking overpasses at Little River and Avalon completed only a few years later in 1974:
http://mrv.ozroads.com.au/southwest/M1princes/M1princeswest.htm
The other overpass of the same design was the one at Point Wilson Road: it opened in 1960, also to serve explosives traffic:
http://mrv.ozroads.com.au/southwest/M1princes/pics2.htm#pw
http://mrv.ozroads.com.au/southwest/M1princes/pics/point%20wilson%20rd/61&62_3.jpg
I was passing RAAF Laverton Airfield today after visiting a good friend of mine who lives in Werribee. I was an instructor at the Gliding Club there and started flying there in 1978. My last flight there was around 1992 and its sad to see it all gone.
Regarding the winch it was a great way to launch but we always had to be on the ground when the RAAF was operational.
I spent many weekends there and still contact some old friends from there who now fly the Qantas A380 and some like my friend in Werribee still enjoy to glide but in other parts of Victoria. I live overseas now and miss that wonderful part of my life….
Yes Royce, I remember those days well including the last flight of the day on 25 Oct 1980 with you!
I attended the 1958 airshow when some of the RAAF buildings were open for display. Also saw AVRO Vulcan or 707 (too young to know the difference at the time) in flight. In early 2000 I competed in a motorkhana there run by the Porsche Club of Victoria. Anyone know what happened to the AVRO?
The RAAF did have a Avro 707A based out of Laverton during the 1950s, so that is the most likely candidate:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130409090746/http://www.adf-gallery.com.au/gallery/Avro-707A
There is/was another abandoned airfield in Melbourne, viz. Fisherman’s Bend, behind the old GAF and CAC sites at the bottom of Lorimer Street.
My first graduate position was at GAF back in the bad evil days when Australian governments aspired to underwriting cutting edge aeronautical design and manufacturing. Some of the projects there in the late 60’s included Nomad, Ikara, Jindivik, Dassault Mirage and components for Boeing and Bell.
The airfield was behind the main assembly halls with a large concrete taxi apron abutting. I believe the last regular use for aircraft was in the 1950’s but as late as 1972 CAC was testing the Australian Army Bell choppers there.
There was a photographic archive there so there may be an online archive somewhere.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZxNt8.jpg[/img]
The Melway Edition 1 (1966) also includes the former CAC runways across maps 42 and 56:
http://melwayed1.melway.com.au/042.jpg
http://melwayed1.melway.com.au/056.jpg
A higher resolution of the 1945 aerial photo can be found on the university of Melbourne website:
http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/maps/historical/1945melb/l_sheets/848b4a.jpg
According to the Australian Heritage Database entry for the DSTO site at Fisherman’s Bend notes that the airfield closed in 1968:
http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;place_id=105596
A history of aircraft built at Fisherman’s Bend can be found here:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a274981.pdf
[…] Melbourne’s abandoned airfield […]
[…] Melbourne’s abandoned airfield […]
I live in the estate. Palmers road and Ashcroft avenue are in the positions of the old runways. There’s no sign of the old runways. It would have been great to retain the runways (like the old Kemayoran Airport in Jakarta!) and having the old markings would have been ace. Oh, and to have had a old Sabre on a stick at the entrance! About the only reference to the sites history is in the park in Delaney boulevarde with it’s control toweresque play tower and some concrete bollards which look like they may have come from a runway somewhere (if you use your imagination).
Another interesting fact about Williams is that there was motorcycle racing there in the early 1980’s. I think it was even attended by multiple world chamption Giacomo Agostini.
Central West Shopping Centre in Braybrook has a Vampire jet atop a stick, and it was only a RAAF stores depot.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9A1M_Vampire_A79_321_Ashley_Street_Braybrook
As for the playground in Williams Landing, it’s pretty cool:
http://www.jackandthebenstalk.com.au/ashcroft-park-delaney-boulevard-williams-landing/
Braybrook also has a cool plane themed playground:
https://www.melbourneplaygrounds.com.au/braybrook-park-aeroplane-playground-churchill-avenue-braybrook
I was at the RAAF School of Radio in the early 80’s and spent a lot of time with the gliding club on the airfield. The gliders were kept in the last hanger on the north east edge of the tarmac. Two blaniks VH-GVT & GYJ plus a rare Salto GBG with a Vee tail which is still registered but not flown for a number of years. The hanger next door was the (22?) reserve squadron. Geoff Trappet was the C.O. and kept his P51 Mustang there. Went for a 20 minute ride in it for $200. I think it might cost me more today! Now resides near Latrobe Valley with a Sabre jet as company, There were about 6 A-model Hercules stored in the open on the south-east corner of the airfield. Eventually scrapped as they were poorly kept although heard rumours one ended up in a warzone somewhere. RADS had two DC3’s in an adjacent hanger for trade training.
http://www.radschool.org.au
has a lot of information if you delve into the magazines!
Thanks for the extra history Ian!
dont forget the moto gp race held there ref agostini or the buried bomshelters
I never knew about the Moto GP race – a one off in 1976 – but found these articles.
https://www.mcnews.com.au/1976-australian-tt-laverton/
https://amcn.com.au/editorial/laverton-international/
[…] Williams Landing was just an abandoned RAAF airfield. […]
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this looks familiar, although its a bit different now this year, but I think I passed by this place. Love to learn something about this. Great discussion in the comments
[…] Last used in 1998, the site is now the suburb of Williams Landing. […]
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