Dubbo Airport Royal Flying Doctor Service Master Planning

for NSW Public Works / Royal Flying Doctor Service

REHBEIN Airport Consulting was commissioned by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (South Eastern Section) to develop a Master Plan for the RFDS facilities at Dubbo Airport. The objective of the plan was to establish, at a strategic level, the ultimate arrangement of facilities within the existing site along with identifying the need for additional land in the longer term. This was required to feed in to an update of the Dubbo Airport Master Plan to be prepared by the airport operator Dubbo City Council.

The process considered micro-level options for reconfiguration of the existing facilities – comprising Medical Centre, administration space, an operational maintenance hangar and a Visitor Centre – to provide additional short-term needs and improve the adjacencies and relationships between functions. A series of macro-level options for the arrangement of the whole site including two additional hangar facilities, a stand-alone Visitor Centre and a possible flight simulator facility was then developed.

Effective engagement with the key stakeholders was essential to the process. An inception workshop enabled a clear, shared understanding of the brief to be developed. The preferred  concept was agreed during a workshop with key stakeholders which presented each option and discussed in detail their relative merits. 

The final result is a Master Plan which allows immediate developments to occur to meet imminent needs while establishing a clear long-term vision for the longer-term requirements which assists DCC to develop their overall airport Master Plan.