What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
Support
Home For Heroes
Join us in building a forever home for New Zealand’s C-130 Hercules and P-3 Orion – icons of service.
For more than half a century, these legendary aircraft carried our nation’s courage across the world – in peace, crisis, and discovery. Now, they need a home worthy of their legacy, where their stories of service, innovation and humanity will continue to inspire.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Our Aircraft
Explore AircraftMore to explore
THE FIRST 8! We're very excited to let you know that we're hosting the First 8 today - it is free, inspiring and we'd love to see you here at 10am in our Theatre.
Come along to listen composer Alexandra Hope Watson talk about her work The First 8, and then see the recording of its premiere at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
This inspiring musical tells the untold story of the first eight women employed by the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during World War II, led by Pauline Gower.
The First 8 explores the pioneering journey of these female pilots who overcame a doubting public and made history as they ferried Spitfires, Hurricanes and other aircraft across the United Kingdom.
They campaigned for equal treatment, ultimately winning the ATA’s landmark recognition as the first organisation in the UK to grant equal pay to women.
First 8 is being shown as part of our Curated Cinema series.
Time: 10am
Where: Air Force Museum of New Zealand Theatre
Address: 45 Harvard Avenue, Wigram, Christchurch
#first8 #curatedcinema ... See MoreSee Less
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🚨📢GET THE KETTLE ON! WE HAVE A WINNER !!! 🚨📢
Actually we have bent the rules and we have two winners this week.
Top prize goes to Jason Robson who correctly idenitifed it as a vent off the Aermacchi MB-339CB.
The stylish, Italian-designed hot air vent in fact belongs to our beautfiul Macchi, NZ6460.
NZ6460 was the first Aermacchi to be assembled and test flown in 1991, and retired in 2001. It's a little Italian hotrod and a taonga in our collection.
This week we've given an honourable mention, and therefore a mug, to Eileen Stewart for spotting the ghost of Thomas the Tank Engine in the machine.
Get the kettle on Jason and Eileen! And then email communications@airforcemuseum.co.nz with your home address and we will fire up the Bristol Freighter and air drop the mugs to you.
They're our roundel mugs. They are round with roundels and are having a moment just now.
Thanks to everyone who took part.
We'd love to give mugs to all the other correct - and deliberately incorrect answers that made us laugh - but, unfortunately, we're not made of mugs.
Another competition next week, and this one is going to be technical, difficult, and virtually unsolvable. Only the first minds will get it.
Good luck - yo#MysteryObject n#wedonthaveacluey#impossiblepuzzleveaclue #impossiblepuzzle ... See MoreSee Less
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I'm so glad the Thomas answer got a mug, nice recognition of her unparalleled powers of observation...
Just saying………..
Awesome
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JAMIE CLARK dropped by this week to check on the family legacy – granddad’s Lockheed Hudson NZ2013.
Jamie grew up spending most of his spare time on his grandfather Jimmy Clark’s farm at Alma, near Oamaru.
Jimmy was a former RNZAF mechanic and quite the collector.
Somehow, and Jamie still wonders how, Jimmy managed to drag the entire Lockheed Hudson from Marlborough to North Otago on a home-made trailer after it was sold in 1949.
Jimmy converted the Hudson into a chicken coop and repurposed a whole lot of its systems into handy farm equipment.
Jamie has fond memories of Jimmy, his namesake: “He was incredibly clever. He built a saw using hydraulic rams taken off the Hudson. He was a neat granddad – I used to follow him around wearing his old air force jacket.’’
The Hudson fuselage rested on the ground so his chooks could troop up into their flash Lockheed coop via the gunner’s compartment.
And young Jamie loved nothing better than climbing in the gun turret.
Jimmy had a whole lot of sheds – about 30 in all, full of RNZAF and Army equipment, ranging from drawers and surplus parts to Bren gun carriers and aircraft engines.
“He needed all the sheds so he could hide what he’d bought from grandma,’’ Jamie jokes.
The Hudson arrived at our museum in 1985, and our volunteers spent thousands of hours restoring it into pristine condition.
Thanks for visiting Jamie, and for the Clark legacy!
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Jamie has been a good scout helping our project out with the loan of bits and pieces for replication.
My father flew Hudsons in GB during the war. While visiting NZ I was allowed to have a look inside. Extremly interesting to see. In Holland we do not have a Hudson on display. We visited NZ several times and love your country.
here's a couple of pages from my father's flight books flying Hudsons ( PBO )in the pacific
It was a highlight of our many trips to and from Christchurch. Easily visible from the road. So glad it was rescued and returned to its former self.
I recall that the local Air Training Corps squadron fundraised to purchase the Hudson for the museum.
We were down at Oamaru, in the mid eighties, for a regional BMX race, and stayed at the motel across the road from the farm. We arrived late at night, and in the morning as the mist cleared, we looked across and could see the outline of the fuselage. We wandered across the road to take a look. A number of us knew what aircraft it was. Years later we heard it had ended up at the museum, which is great to see.
I have been told in the past that Jim Clark's brother-in-law was Minister for Railways, and he arranged for the Hudson and Mosquito to make their way down south to his place on a train. So the trailer story may not have been such a long distance towing trip as Marlborough to Alma, but just from Woodbourne to the railway station, and the southern railway station to the farm. Can anyone confirm this?
An amazing man, was the remaining surplus farmed out to other museums and collectors?
What a wonderful story! Thank you Jamie and AFMNZ team for sharing it! The Hudson’s one of my favourite exhibits at Wigram and it’s so great to hear another human side of its life.
I remember seeing it many times driving Dunedin Christchurch
I was good friends with the family. Played in this many times as a kid.
Love these stories 👍
I remember seeing this when I was a kid on the south side of Oamaru.
I remember this Chicken house and always kept a look out every time we drove past on our way north and south great to see how it looks now.
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