What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
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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
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MEET ALEXANDRA! Alexandra Hope Watson is the composer of The First 8 -
an inspiring musical that recounts the untold story of the first eight women employed by the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during World War II, led by Pauline Gower.
Alexandra is giving a free talk in our Theatre this Sunday at 10am, before the screening of a recording of The First 8's premiere at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
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.
The First 8 is being shown as part of our Curated Cinema series. The musical and talk runs from 10am until 12.30pm and is FREE - no need to book.
Time: 10am Sunday 21 June
Where: Air Force Museum of New Zealand Theatre
Address: 45 Harvard Avenue, Wigram, Christchurch
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Today is World Refugee Day, so we thought we'd revisit the #RNZAF's contributions to assisting refugees and displaced communities all around the world in recent decades.
At the end of the Vietnam War, in the 1970s, thousands of Vietnamese had fled the country.
These so-called ‘Boat People’ arrived in countries across South East Asia.
The tiny island nation of Singapore set up a camp at Hawkins Road to accommodate and process these refugees.
New Zealand still had a military presence then and wives of NZDF and RNZAF personnel assisted in the care and educations of them, particularly the children.
The genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 resulted in Operation Reforge and the deployment to Goma, Zaire of a C-130H Hercules and detachment.
They airlifted huge amounts of food and supplies to the vast refugee camps that resulted from those fleeing the killing in Rwanda.
When violence erupted in East Timor in 1999, once again, many were displaced and assisted during Operarion Farina. Once again NZ Army and RNZAF personnel assisted them, as people sought information on relatives who were missing during the violence.
These are just some of the operations which have formed part of what the RNZAF has contributed to and is prepared to carry out when there is a desperate need.
📸 United Nations Hawkins Road Refugee Camp for Vietnamese refugees in Singapore.
Rosalie MacGregor (2nd from left) and Pham Ngoo Hue (far right).
Many RNZAF families helped out in this camp. SEA91-R1-5-82
📸No. 40 Squadron Hercules NZ7002 on the tarmac at Goma, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) with local children. The Hercules detachment is part of Operation Reforge, delivering food supplies to refugees from the Rwandan genocide. PF196-19-94
📸Op Farina - East Timor: No. 3 Squadron aircraft avionics technician, Sergeant Wayne 'Fritz' Van Rooden (Nelson), with a group of local people at Suai, East Timor.
These people are gathered outside the Refugee Transition Centre waiting to hear about relatives. Oh565-19-00
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We do a lot in the Pacific and Australia also pulls its weight in the Pacific and other areas.
I was on Op Reforge. Herc 02 😀. Good memories of my first overseas deployment
📢CIRCUIT BREAKER!! 🚨We don't want to flex, but we're the subject of a great write-up in the lastest edition of Motor Sport, a rarified place to be!
Wigram Airfield Circuit features in the July issue's 'Great Lost Circuits' feature, and it's a cracking tale.
It traces our history as a circuit from 1949, and covers our hey-day when 30,000 people would show up to watch the biggest names in the world compete against each other on our 3.5 km circuit.
Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Bruce McLaren and Stirling Moss all competed here on our RNZAF airfield circuit.
In modern terms, it'd be like having Max Verstappen, Sir Lewis Hamilton and Liam Lawson roaring around. (For the record they're all welcome to try our shortened circuit!)
Motor Sport is a British institution, covering the sport exhaustively and brilliantly for 102 y#LiamLawsonJ#motorsports on sale now.
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Imagine walking into a clients home here in little old Hawkes Bay. My eye was caught by a black and photo hanging in the hall! “That’s Stirling Moss and Bruce McLaren who’s the other chap?” I asked and client answered “oh that’s my late husband and the boys”!!!