Five Mile Tank Airfield

The specific reason is not officially documented. As a private airstrip serving a remote cattle station in the Channel Country of Queensland, closure was almost certainly due to a change in the station's operational needs. Common reasons for such closures include: a change in property ownership, the station no longer owning or operating an aircraft, a shift to using helicopters which require less prepared landing areas, or the strip being superseded by a better-maintained one on the same or a nearby property. It was not a public airport, so economic reasons are tied directly to the viability and practices of the pastoral station it served.

The site is completely abandoned and disused. High-resolution satellite imagery shows the faint, overgrown outlines of two intersecting runways on what is now open grazing land. The land has reverted to its natural state as part of the surrounding cattle station. There is no visible infrastructure such as hangars, buildings, or aviation markings remaining.

The airfield holds no major national or regional historical significance. It was a typical private, unpaved airstrip, often called a 'bush strip' or 'station strip', which are essential infrastructure for vast, remote pastoral properties in the Australian Outback. Its function was purely utilitarian. Operations would have involved light, single-engine aircraft (e.g., Cessna or Piper models) for transporting station personnel, light supplies, and mail. It may also have been used for aerial mustering (herding cattle by plane) and would have served as a potential landing site for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) in medical emergencies. The name 'Five Mile Tank' likely refers to a nearby stock watering tank, a common naming convention for features on large stations.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the airfield. Given its extreme remoteness, abandoned state, and the likely lack of any modern economic or logistical driver for its specific location, the prospect of it being restored for aviation use is virtually zero. If air access were required in the area today, it would be more practical to grade a new strip or use a different, active airstrip on a nearby station.