The airport began as the Seven Mile Drome, one strip of the wartime Port Moresby airfield complex. In March 1942, with Japanese forces at Lae, the RAAF sent its newly formed No. 75 Squadron north. The squadron had formed on 4 March 1942 with P-40 Kittyhawks; its advance party reached Port Moresby on 17 March and the fighters followed between 19 and 21 March. Its commanding officer, Squadron Leader John Francis Jackson, a Queenslander born in 1908, took command on 19 March and arrived at Seven Mile on 21 March. The next morning he led a dawn raid on the Japanese at Lae airfield.

For about six weeks the squadron fought the raids on Port Moresby. Wikipedia’s account of the unit gives the result as 35 Japanese aircraft confirmed destroyed, four probables and 44 damaged, at a cost of 22 Kittyhawks, six of them in accidents, and twelve men killed. On 28 April 1942 Jackson led the five Kittyhawks still airworthy against a raid, destroyed a Japanese fighter and was shot down and killed; Wikipedia records eight victories to his name. His brother Les took command the next day. The squadron was withdrawn from operations on 3 May and left for Australia on 7 May 1942.

The Seven Mile strip was renamed Jackson’s in his honour, and the name survived the war, the transfer of the airport to civil use and independence. Wikipedia today titles its article Port Moresby International Airport and notes the earlier Jacksons International Airport name; the ICAO code is AYPY.

Papua New Guinea’s own military flying began in August 1975, when the first ex-RAAF Dakotas were handed to the PNGDF weeks before independence. ADF-Serials, which tracks every airframe, says the Air Transport Squadron was first based at Port Moresby and then moved to Lae, returning to Jackson’s Field when Lae airport closed. The dates are not settled. Wikipedia’s articles on both Lae Airfield and Lae Nadzab Airport say the PNGDF was based at Lae until it transferred to Port Moresby in 1992, while the old Lae Airfield is variously described as closed in 1977 or 1987.

Jackson’s Field had already received the most expensive aircraft the service has owned: ADF-Serials records the two CASA CN-235Ms, P2-0501 and P2-0502, delivered in November 1991 to Jackson’s Field. Both were soon withdrawn for lack of money. When ADF-Serials photographed the base in 2002 and again in 2016, the hangar told the story of the years between: an Arava transport inside the PNGDF hangar in September 2002, a Dakota derelict and engineless on the field the same month, the CN-235s in the hangar in January 2016, and three Iroquois from the Bougainville war standing derelict on the ramp.

The Sandline affair of 1997 left its own trace. The contractors were arrested by PNGDF soldiers on the night of 16 March 1997 and the Mi-24 gunships bound for the PNGDF were diverted to RAAF Base Tindal, where they stayed until buried near Darwin in 2016. Two smaller aircraft did reach Port Moresby: ADF-Serials lists a CASA C-212 Aviocar 200 and a Cessna 337A registered to Sandair Corp of Delaware in February 1997 and still in outside storage at Jackson’s Field in 2016.

Since 2012 the life of the base has turned on Australian support. Bell 212 helicopters leased from Hevilift PNG under the Defence Cooperation Program were noted at Jackson’s Field in January 2016, still on lease. The first P-750 from the 2016 Pacific Aerospace contract arrived in 2018, and in 2023 Australia gifted two more 750XLs; the manufacturer said the first would fly to PNG in April 2023 and the second by September, with the ADF and PNGDF continuing joint training, maintenance and sustainment through their Flights of Excellence programme.

On 19 September 2025 the wing marked a recovery: the engines of a CN-235 that had not flown since 2017 were started for the first time in eight years. The PNG Bulletin reported phase-one recovery work 85–90 per cent complete before an overhaul in Indonesia, with plans to recover the second CN-235 afterwards. Defence Minister Dr Billy Joseph thanked Australia for the three P-750s but said the government wanted to move on to twin-engine aircraft. Wikipedia, citing the Post-Courier, reports that a Bell 412 helicopter leased through the Australian government joined the air element in February 2026.