Owing to the unserviceability of Augustus Downs landing ground after rain, the RAAF was faced with the immediate necessity of providing an all-weather strip in the Gulf country of up to 3000 yards (3280 metres) that could be constructed with minimum effort within a short period. Inverleigh cattle station, south-east of Normanton, was already equipped with a small strip from pre-war days, used by Airlines of Australia and other local operators. The civil strip was located on a well-drained gravel rise without overburden, west of the station homestead on L Creek. All that was necessary was to bring in earth moving equipment to extend the strip, provide a cross runway and form taxiways and dispersal bays. It was proposed to establish Inverleigh as the main operational base in the region.

Today Inverleigh airfield is unchanged in layout from the wartime years. Although the buildings-decorated and camouflaged in 1943 by Eric Jolliffe, then Australia’s favourite cartoonist-have long since been removed or consumed by white ants, the airfield remains in use as the station strip and it’s still possible to follow the taxiways and identify the wartime wind sock post, duty pilot tower footings and machine gun pits at the intersection of the runways.