What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
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.
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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
WE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING! Once your C-130H Hercules (also known as Charles) landed last year, how the devil did you fit in your hanger?
The answer is a little bit of tail up down and turnaround work, performed magnificently by our friends from Airbus at Woodbourne.
Charles is safely tucked up for conservation. Over the past 12 months we’ve been working hard to find the money to build a new exhibition space for our Hercules and our other national treasure, our P-3K2 Orion NZ4203.
You can learn all about the project here: airforcemuseum.co.nz/home-for-heroes
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I have personally been involved with removing and refitting the vertical stabiliser of a C-130 at Woodbourne. It is literally a few fairings and a half dozen quite large nuts and bolts. The coordination between the SNCO in charge and his team is next level impressive. The nuts and bolts are the easy part!
ONE YEAR AGO TODAY! On 19 February 2025 our C-130H (NZ) Hercules landed at Wigram.
The crew from No. 40 Squadron performed a touch and go before pulling off a successful landing to the delight of the thousands of spectators lining our temporary airfield. The Herc took 273.5m to stop.
NZ7001’s landing was a huge undertaking – which took months of planning to make sure it could be done safely on an airfield that closed about 30 years ago as an operational RNZAF base.
Since then we’ve been working hard to find the money to build a new exhibition space for our Hercules and our other national treasure, our P-3K2 Orion NZ4203.
You can learn all about the project here: airforcemuseum.co.nz/home-for-heroes
In the meantime, here’s the highlight reel from the day.
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Great birthday present for me 🤩
I was there. Took the day off on a hunch and was not disappointed. Very special thing to witness. Turned out to be a piece of cake to the gun RNZAF crew tasked with the job.
I appreciate that there was a lot of planning involved to achieve this remarkable feat, in the end the RNZAF made it look easy, just another day in the office 😀
I hope this footage & photo's taken of the landing becomes part of he display .
Still remember that, amazing day, though getting heat exhaustion was a bit of a downer
Great story now part of our history 👏
Amazing watching it land. Just stunning
Great day and enjoyable week during the open week
40 SQN 1983
I was there to see the landing amazing, history made, at the birth place of the Airforce where it all began 1916
This was impressive to watch happen!
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TIGER DAY: Join Volunteer Guide Chris Checketts for a talk on the history of the de Havilland DH82A Tiger Moth in RNZAF service at 10.30am and 1pm today.
The RNZAF operated a total of 335 Tiger Moths, and they were the backbone of basic pilot training from 1939 and throughout the war.
Chris grew up surrounded by Tigers.
His father, Wing Commander Johnny Checketts DSO DFC, trained on Tiger Moths and went on to become one of New Zealand’s most decorated fighter pilots during World War Two.
After the war Johnny operated an aerial top-dressing business flying Tiger Moths when Chris was a youngster.
After he retired Johnny spent his spare time restoring Tiger Moths.
He was one of the original ‘Moth Doctors’ who restored the two Tiger Moths in our collection, NZ825 (formerly NZ1481) and NZ662.
This talk is FREE and is part of our Talking Taonga series which highlights the history of the treasures in our collection.
Meet Chris at the Tiger!
PS: Did you know some Tiger Moths were Holden-powered?
As World War Two raged in Europe and Allied aircraft losses mounted, the need to train huge numbers of pilots from Commonwealth countries became urgent.
The Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) was formed with Australian and New Zealand pilots and aircrew completing basic training at home on Tiger Moths before heading to Canada for advanced lessons.
In total more than 131,000 aircrew were trained in the EATS programme – including pilots, navigators, observers and wireless operators and gunners. More than 7000 Kiwis took part.
The pilots needed aircraft to train in and Tiger Moths were in hot demand as basic trainers.
Factories in Melbourne and Sydney produced 1035 Tiger Moths, with engines manufactured by General Motors Holden.
Australian production peaked at 30 per month by the end of 1940!
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That would be very interesting & I wish it was possible to attend. My Dad was involved a great deal with Tiger Moths courtesy of Farmers Aerial in Southland & I'm pretty sure the owner of the company was a former Corsair pilot who served in the Pacific with the RNZAF.
Test flew this aircraft 19Mar87 after restoration by Johnny Checketts and the Moth Doctors.  it was then flown by a CFS Instructor in the RNZAF 50th Anniversary celebration and opening of the RNZAF Museum 1Apr87. A great day!
Speaking of Holden powered tigers.
Had a short flight in this beautiful old girl, Rangiora to Wigram in the 1990’s. Felt odd wearing a parachute but dems was the rules!
Such a shame that this Tiger Moth will never fly again, when it was perfectly airworthy. :(
What a beautiful aircraft
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