What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
Birthday Parties
Mission: Best birthday ever
Zip up a flight suit, grab your dog tags, and dive into a fully hosted birthday “mission”. From air & sea adventures for preschoolers to rescue and cadet challenges for older children. Our Programmes team runs the activities, the children get awesome photo moments (and party bags), and you can add catering through our café.
Book a birthday party
Latest Exhibition
Victory!
It is 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
Our Victory exhibition, upstairs in the atrium, marks this significant milestone in world history, and the story of the RNZAF.
Victory includes images and memories of Victory in Europe (VE) Day and Victory over Japan (VJ) Day which have been sourced from photographs, letters, postcards and personal histories in our collection.
Victory includes insights into how Kiwis celebrated, and how they felt.
Many found it difficult to rejoice after so much loss and suffering.
You’re welcome to come along and learn all about the end of World War Two with us.
Exhibition
The Mighty Hercules
The Mighty Hercules exhibition is on in the Cochrane Gallery upstairs in our atrium. Come and visit and learn all about this extraordinary aircraft.
Learn More
Update
Overseas visitor charge
A $15 entry charge was introduced for all international visitors to the Air Force Museum of New Zealand from 31 March 2025. Tickets available online or from our Welcome Desk on arrival.
The charge is required to cover rising costs and to contribute to our new $20 million extension to house the newest members of our collection – our historic Hercules and Orion aircraft.
Learn More
Our Aircraft
Explore AircraftMore to explore
LOOK AT THAT STICKER GO! We’ve found the fastest Kiwi Red sticker on earth, but we need you to keep quiet about it.
Take a close look in the undercarriage bay of the Lockheed YF12 on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio and you’ll see there’s a slightly weathered-looking Kiwi Red sticker taking pride of place.
How it got there is a mystery, and how our volunteer guide Alex McHaffie got behind the barriers to get this photo is an even greater riddle.
What we know for sure it is potentially the fastest Kiwi Red ever!
The YF-12 was no slow coach. The American Mach 3+ capable, high-altitude interceptor prototype, was developed and manufactured by Lockheed as part of its ultra-secret Skunk Works aircraft design programme.
It is the predecessor of the SR-71 Blackbird, and this family of aircraft were so fast they could outpace surface-to- air missiles.
Mach 3+ means our Kiwi Red sticker was capable of flying at 3,200 km/h with a ceiling of 80,000 feet.
The predecessor of the YF-12 was the A-12 Central Intelligence Agency spy plane, which was kept secret for more than 20 years.
What is not quite so secret is that Kiwi Red stickers belonged to the RNZAF’s jet aerobatic team from the 1980s until the early 1990s.
Kiwi Red pilots flew No. 75 Squadron Skyhawks, made by McDonnell Douglas and not quite as fast as the AYF12, although they could go supersonic in a dive.
Please keep this sticker business to yourself. Uncle Sam does not need to know.
#lockheedskunkworks #yf12 #rnzaf #kiwired ... See MoreSee Less
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MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL - SLICE AND A SPITFIRE!
Bring mum to our museum on Mother’s Day (Sunday 10 May) and she’ll get a FREE SLICE with her hot drink at our Contact Café.
So that’s FREE ENTRY, and a FREE SLICE, and then time to admire a Spitfire!
What better way to spend Mother’s Day than with us?
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Leslie Meads this would be nice
Photos from NZ Defence Force's post ... See MoreSee Less
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Samoa came a poor second to Tonga and Fiji... open.substack.com/pub/michaelf27/p/pacific-people-buying-spitfires-for?r=2rgq5&utm_campaign=post-...
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