Built between 1936 and 1939, RAAF Base Pearce was officially granted "station" status on 6 February 1939. It was named in honour of
Sir George Pearce, a
Senator from Western Australia. Pearce was elected to the inaugural Senate in 1901 and remained a Senator for Western Australia until 1938. He was
Minister for Defence in four separate ministries including the period 1910 to 1913 when the
Central Flying School was established. The base opened with two resident squadrons,
Nos. 14 and
25 Squadrons. During
World War II, No. 5 Initial Training School (ITS) was formed at RAAF Pearce as part of the
Empire Air Training Scheme and
No. 85 Squadron RAAF was stationed. Recruits commenced their military service at the ITS, learning fundamentals such as mathematics, navigation and aerodynamics. The circuit was triangular in shape, and used all three runways of the base. The feature race was won on handicap by Syd Negus in a Plymouth Special, ahead of Syd Barker in a Ballot V8 and Arthur Collett in an
MG TC. RAAF Base Pearce is used by the
Australian Air Force Cadets as a headquarters and for promotional courses, as well as serving as headquarters for No. 7 Wing and premises for No. 701 Squadron (AAFC). The base also serves as an anti-hijacking training aid for
Special Air Service Regiment counter-terrorism squadron, also known as
Tactical Assault Group (West). It is used to practise airliner entry and hostage rescue drills. The base is home to a mockup of a
Boeing 747 used for this counter-terrorism training. Built in the early 1990s the mockup is slightly smaller than the Boeing 747, includes two non-operational engines and has been painted in the livery of the fictional Emu Airlines. Since 1993,
Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has operated its Flying Training Institute at Pearce. As part of the institute, No. 130 Squadron RSAF operates training aircraft at Pearce. In 2014, the base was the hub for
the international search of the southern
Indian Ocean for
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It hosted search aircraft from six other nations including a
United States Navy P-8 Poseidon,
P-3 Orions of the
Royal New Zealand Air Force,
Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and
Republic of Korea Navy, and
Ilyushin Il-76s of the Chinese
People's Liberation Army Air Force. Pearce has sometimes been proposed as the site for a second Perth international airport. == RAAF units==