Charleville airport has close historic ties with the birth of commercial aviation in Australia. In 1920, two World War I pilots, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, registered the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (QANTAS) with the objective of establishing an aerial passenger and mail service between the railhead townships of outback Queensland and the Northern Territory. Early in 1922 Qantas successfully tendered for a new government mail contract between Charleville and Cloncurry and over the following months landing grounds were established at points along the route. During this period Qantas contracted the erection of aircraft hangars at Charleville, Longreach and Cloncurry. Today the remains of wartime occupation include the surviving wartime maintenance hangar—Hangar 104—which was retained by the RAAF when the US forces departed, and a small concrete shed, built in 1942 as a security store for bombsights fitted to US heavy bombers staging through Charleville. The instruments were removed from the aircraft on landing and taken to this building, where a round-the-clock guard was mounted. It now provides evidence of the determination of the USAAF to protect the secrecy of its new Norden bombsight.