The Woomeara Test Range, as it was formerly known, was a rocket testing facility created in the wake of the emergent Cold War split in 1947. The centre line of the airfield was surveyed by Len Beadell in early 1947. The first aircraft to use the field, a Dakota, landed at Woomera on Thursday 19 June 1947. It brought General Evetts and a party of British scientists to inspect the airfield which had just been completed.