What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
Latest Exhibition
Tall Tails
Our Tall Tails exhibition features the mounted tails of the C-130 Hercules and P-3 Orion, this new exhibition brings visitors closer to two extraordinary aircraft and the stories they carry. It also highlights the importance of finding a permanent home for them, as the Museum continues to fundraise through the Home for Heroes project.
Tall Tails is on display in our Thérèse Angelo Wing.
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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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Support Us
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.
Book a birthday party
Our Aircraft
Explore AircraftMore to explore
📢🚨WHOOP WHOOP - GET THE KETTLE ON - WE HAVE A WINNER!📢🚨: Come on down Ian Hocking - deserved winner of this week's mystery object competition.
The objects were indeed dip sticks for the Bristol Freighter - one for the outer tanks, one for the inner.
These high-tech pieces were not vampire stakes as one reader suggested, but this sent us on a hunt for De Havilland dip sticks as a side quest.
Ian, we hope this prized coffee mug makes your life complete!
Please email communications@airforcemuseum.co.nz and we will fire up the Auster and fly the mug out to you.
We would normally use the Freighter but fuel prices mean we've had to introduce Austerity (geddit?) measures.
A new mystery awaits next week. ... See MoreSee Less
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Awesome congratulations to the winner
EVER WONDERED? Why did the Chance-Vought F4U-1/F4U-1D and Goodyear FG-1D Corsairs flown by the RNZAF have gull-shaped wings?
Excellent question!
In 1938 the US Navy wanted an aircraft powered by the extremely potent new Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine which was capable of producing 2000 horsepower.
The Navy was also keen on an aircraft capable of 640 km/h, and when they did the maths this required a propellor with a diameter of 4 metres.
To fit this massive propellor the aircraft would require tall landing gear, which was likely to be complicated and heavy, producing a lot of drag.
The engineers all got together to ponder a solution, and they came up with a bent wing design. By bending the wing, the landing gear could be kept short and the wings low, keeping drag to a minimum.
Genius.
The RNZAF thought so and there were more Corsairs in the air force than any other aircraft type. The RNZAF operated 424 Corsairs from 1944, with the last aircraft retiring in 1948.
But wait, time for one more question. Why did Goodyear, more famous for making tires, make Corsairs?
The answer is that Chance-Vought was a relatively small manufacturer and ran out of capacity to meet the huge demand for aircraft during the war years.
Goodyear had excess factory space, and manufactured Corsairs under licence.
#rnzaf #corsair ... See MoreSee Less
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Hellcat had the same engine and prop yet didn’t require an inverted gull wing. I suggest the primary reason was a reduction in intersection drag.
I always understood the reason for the Corsair wing design was exactly as the Air Force Museum describe. In these days of social media, where anyone can self-publish anything, we need to be careful about re-writing history. That includes even listening to pilots who flew them when in service. Rant over. Now I want to know, did Chance Vought get the idea from Junkers?
Agree with commentors vs OP, the gull wing was not related to landing gear clearance, but other aerodynamic, storage, and pilot visibility enhancements. Plenty of vids on the subject.
I just watched a video on this topic in the past hour by concidence and a true ww2 pilot gave an answer to this question. I am going to dispute the claims in this post and it was to stop the propeller hitting the ground. youtube.com/shorts/wpj3w_h3AmU?si=feTd_Z_hzfkAZRbh
This page is from a Vought internal newsletter during WW2. Explains their reasons.
The aspect of the pilot trying to see past the big elevated nose made it difficult and dangerous to attempt carrier landings until a clever method of approach was pioneered by pilots of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.
Awesome tutorial lesson, thank you
Pity you dont have one to display
Another document on the subject researched using Vought files and interviewing Vought engineers.
Brewster also manufactured them and got a pretty poor rating for their quality of work..
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HUB DAY! Great turnout today for the monthly Veterans’ Hub gathering at our place, which featured a visit from Veteran’s Affairs (VA) Chief Executive Alexander Brunt and Banks Peninsula MP Vanessa Weenink.
Alexander was welcomed to the Air Force Museum of New Zealand by Director Brett Marshall, before giving the veterans an update on the claims progress and a planned new IT system at VA.
He then took time to meet with everyone who wanted a chat. And there was a lot of chat, with gunners, infantry, aviators and sailors all on parade.
Vanessa is a former Army doctor and a veteran as well – so she was with her people!
The Veterans’ Hub was founded in Christchurch as a place for veterans and their families and meets on the last Friday of each month at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at 10am.
So if you’re a veteran or family, and would like to connect, come along!
There are now Veterans’ Hubs in Kerikeri, Blenheim, Ashburton, Timaru and Invercargill.
#veteransaffairs #nzdf ... See MoreSee Less
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Thanks for that, I've noted it my book as I just returned home from after living in Oz for 30 odd yrs and most of that was in the RAAF Ground Defence Wing as an ADG.
Another great catch up with fellow vets.
Thank you for promoting the Veterans' Hub Veterans' Hub, Marlborough
🫡👍