Air Weapons Ranges

Mr Baldwin asked the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, in writing, on 4 February 2010:

What considerations are made with respect to the selection of land for use as an air weapons range.

Mr Combet - The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

Selection of an air weapons range needs to consider the following criteria as a minimum:

• Operational constraints such as characteristics of aircraft, training requirements, target requirements, noise, operating costs, range from the mother base, air safety requirements and air corridor requirements.
• Physical and environmental constraints such as topography, infrastructure, general land use (mining, forestry etc), population centres and environmentally sensitive areas.

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