RAAF Curtin

RAAF Base Curtin is a Royal Australian Air Force base located 19 NM southeast of the town of Derby on the north coast of Western Australia. As it is one of the RAAF's three 'bare bases' no Air Force units are currently based at Curtin and it is maintained by a small caretaker staff during peacetime. The base is named in honour of former Prime Minister John Curtin.

RAAF Curtin was the first new major military airfield to be built in Australia since World War II. Construction on the base began in 1983 and it was opened on 11 June 1988. The base has only been activated twice by the RAAF.

From the late 1990s the base operated as Curtin Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, a Commonwealth of Australia immigration detention centre, which closed in September 2002. However the centre was reopened in April 2010 to house around 60 Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers whose applications were suspended.

There is a direct flights back to Derby (to Perth) from 2007 since Ansett terminated the service in 1992.