The Royal Australian Air Drive has wrapped up its 2025 Richmond Airshow, marking the air base’s centenary.
Held at RAAF Base Richmond over the weekend, the occasion attracted round 80,000 individuals and featured each static and aerial shows such because the F-35A Lightning II, F/A-18F Tremendous Hornet, E-7A Wedgetail, P-8 Poseidon, and No. 100 Squadron’s heritage plane.
“The neighborhood sees our achievements within the information, watches our work on social media, however seldom has that chance to interact and expertise with Defence firsthand,” mentioned Wing Commander Andrew Burke, Senior Australian Defence Drive Officer at RAAF Base Richmond and Commanding Officer No. 22 Squadron.
“The air present permits us to welcome our neighborhood via the gates and into our office, thank them for his or her help, reply their questions on our position and showcase {our capability}.
“As a commanding officer and Senior Australian Defence Drive Officer, it’s definitely the rarest of privileges to host our area people on the bottom and have fun a centenary air present with them.”
RAAF Richmond, opened in June 1925, is the oldest Air Drive base in NSW, and second oldest in Australia after Level Prepare dinner in Victoria. In accordance with WGCDR Burke, the bottom has a “distinctive and shut relationship” with its area people.
“Successive generations of the Hawkesbury neighborhood have supported the bottom for 100 years, and longer nonetheless when you think about the native council campaigned to carry aviation to Richmond following the First World Warfare,” he mentioned.
“For many years, aviators have returned to RAAF Base Richmond from conflicts and disasters in our area and the world over and felt welcomed by a neighborhood who supported them and their households.”
Greater than 1.28 million guests have attended occasions corresponding to air exhibits and open days at RAAF Richmond over the previous century, which WGCDR Burke mentioned highlights their worth as a recruitment device.
“Any variety of RAAF aviators will let you know that coming to an air present impressed them to take a profession in Air Drive, and the century of air exhibits hosted at RAAF Base Richmond are a part of that historical past,” he mentioned.
“What’s modified in 2025 is the expansion of missions we now carry out in Defence, from highly-specialised workforces in cyber and house domains via to different important roles within the air and on the bottom.
“The keenness was evident from Defence members – from ADF Careers via to ADF Drone Racing and the person Defence models and squadrons, all answering questions on the tarmac at RAAF Base Richmond and galvanizing a brand new era of aviators to return.”
RAAF Base Richmond has been house to the C-130 Hercules because the plane first got here into service in 1958.
Lately, it has turn out to be a principal help base for RAAF’s contribution to humanitarian and catastrophe aid operations, together with Operation Bushfire Help 2019–20 and the Afghanistan Non-Combatant Evacuation in 2021.
