The Air Force undertakes routine flying activities at RAAF Base Amberley. The majority of the flying training occurs in designated training areas, situated over farming, rural and overwater areas, which helps reduce the time aircraft spend over residential areas.

Amberley Flying Training Areas include:

• Western Training Area: The western training area is essential airspace for training all RAAF Base Amberley aircraft including the F/A-18F Super Hornet, KC-30A Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft and the C-17A Globemaster III. The western training area airspace is located west of RAAF Base Amberley and commences south west of Toowoomba.
• Over water training areas: The Northern Training Area, Northern Bridge, Central Training Area, Southern Training Area, and Southern Bridge are airspaces located overwater to the East of the coastline.
• Evans Head: The Evans Head Air Weapons Range is primarily used by Amberley based F/A-18F Super Hornets to conduct ground attack training. This is the only weapons range within the training radius of the F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft from their home base at Amberley.

Noise Mitigation

The Department of Defence Aircraft Noise Management Strategy outlines how they work with local communities to reduce noise impacts, while balancing operational and training requirements.

Flying operations are conducted in consideration of local communities, whilst maintaining the safe operation of the aircraft. More information can be found in the:

You can access more information on military aircraft activity at:

• Air Force Fly Neighbourly Policy 
• RAAF Amberley Base Noise Management Plan
• RAAF Base Amberley

Brisbane Airport has two parallel runways oriented North-South – Runway 01R/19L (existing/legacy), and Runway 01L/19R (new) which opened on 12 July 2020. Both runways are shown in the image below with orange and yellow arrows at either end.

The image below shows the runways, with:

• The orange arrows pointing to Runway 01L/19R
• The yellow arrows pointing to Runway 01R/19L.

A cross runway (14/32) was de-commissioned as part of the construction of the new runway.

Each runway is referred to differently according to in which direction it is being used, as explained in the following video.

When Brisbane airport is operating in a northerly direction runways 01R and 01L are in use, and runways 19L and 19R are used when the airport is in a southerly direction.

Runway numbering reflects the runways’ orientation and correlates with degrees on a compass. Runway 19 is at 190 degrees.

Runway selection

Operations are divided into two time periods. The day period is 6am to 10pm and the night period is 10pm to 6am.

During the day period, the runway used is based on the planned route of the aircraft. Aircraft planning a route through the north or the west use the new runway, and through the east or the south, the legacy runway.

At night aircraft will when possible operate over Moreton Bay. Arrivals use one runway and departures the other. As the overnight traffic volume is light, aircraft can more readily operate in the same airspace.

Weather conditions

Runway selection is based on wind direction, weather conditions, traffic volume and other factors. Aircraft primarily take-off and land into the wind for safety and performance reasons. Therefore, as the wind direction changes the runway in operation may also change depending on the strength of the wind.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) sets the rules for the provision of Air Traffic Control services. These rules include criteria applying to air traffic control for nominating the runway direction.

If a runway surface is dry, it should not be nominated for use if the downwind exceeds 5 knots. Downwind is wind that blows towards the tail of the aircraft. If the runway surface is wet, it should not be nominated if there is any downwind. For this reason the runway that is nominated for use will usually have a headwind, or if there is downwind, it will be below the criteria.

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Learn more about seasonal changes in your area on our How seasonal variation affects your area page.

The airspace surrounding Brisbane Airport is controlled from the ground level up. The base of the controlled airspace rises moving outwards from Brisbane Airport, with the airspace below the base being uncontrolled. Light aircraft and helicopters often remain in uncontrolled airspace to remain separated from large passenger aircraft that transit through controlled airspace.

The following image shows light aircraft and helicopter movements in uncontrolled airspace throughout the Brisbane region. As you can see, these flights remain clear of Brisbane Airport:

This however does not mean light aircraft and helicopters are restricted from entering controlled airspace. In order to access this airspace, the aircraft operator requires an airspace clearance and is obligated to abide by air traffic control directions once in the controlled airspace. In the Brisbane region, the most common user of this airspace apart from Brisbane Airport traffic is medical helicopters flying to and from local hospitals. The following image shows some of these flights:

Archerfield Airport also has a pocket of controlled airspace surrounding the airport. A difference to Brisbane’s controlled airspace though is that Archerfield’s is only active from 7:00am – 5:00pm. Outside of these hours the airspace around Archerfield is uncontrolled.

In busy airspace where there is a mix of controlled and uncontrolled airspace, lanes are often established to ensure pilots transiting through the airspace remain outside of controlled airspace. One such lane passes between Brisbane’s and Archerfield’s control zones. The following image shows aircraft using this lane. The control zones for Brisbane Airport and Archerfield Airport are shaded grey. Pilots navigating along these lanes do so with visual reference to landmarks that are easy to recognise from the air which in this case is the University of Queensland and the brickworks in Rochedale. Both of this places are referenced on the map: