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
❓MYSTERY OBJECT COMPETITION❓This week's assignment for our aviation fanatics is to tell us what this is.
Bet you can't!
After last week's Wasp antenna debacle, we've set the degree of difficulty at Warp 9.9 tricky.
Put your answers in the comments below and you'll go in the draw to win an Air Force Museum of New Zealand roundel mug.
They are round with roundels and have been regularly described as the World's Most Desirable Coffee Mug*.
Good#mysteryobjector#wedonthaveacluey#impossiblepuzzleonthaveaclue #impossiblepuzzle ... See MoreSee Less
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Yup. AIM-9 tail fin. The discs get all spinny spinny in the airflow and acts as a gyroscope, stabilizing the missile in flight. Beautiful in its simplicity.
Sidewinder missile fin with wind- driven guidance gyroscope.
Rolleron on a Sidewinder
Not a clue, looks like I need to buy a mug...
Sidewinder rear fin
Rolleron on the tail fin of a sidewinder missile
An adjustable what's-it in the cockpit
Oooh a bomb sighting thingy?
Smarter Every Day did a great little clip on it. Simple engineering to a very complex problem. youtu.be/x8L83AHYum0?si=SZEYmEE5wpwP1jQi
Ashtray for a PA28, sorting out individual ciggie butts as you finish them.
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MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL TODAY - SLICE AND A SPITFIRE!
Bring mum to our museum today 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?
#mothersday ... See MoreSee Less
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Delicious food, slice and service!! Thank you team
HISTORY HIT: If you’ve got a group of curious history students who want to see some primary sources, look no further than us!
When Burnside High School's history department wanted to give their year 12 students a something diffferent for their Vietnam War studies, we rolled out our best.
These included Vietnam veterans Gerry Steele and Tom Turnbull, who gave the students a first-hand view into what it was like to be young Kiwi soldiers sent to the conflict.
Their feelings about going to war - and their treatment after returning home - made compelling listening. We can't thank Gerry and Tom enough for giving their time to share some difficult memories.
And then students were off to see our Vietnam-era aircraft, including the last Bristol Freighter to fly out of Saigon before the war ended in 1975, before a session in the archives with research Curator Simon Moody who had specially prepared some highlights from our collection.
These included the helmet worn by RNZAF pilot Graeme ‘Goldie’ Goldsmith on his missions in the skies over Vietnam, logbooks, maps, propaganda sheets and best of all, the New Zealand flag taken from the Kiwi ambassador’s car in Saigon.
Best of all is the coded letter, addressed to the High Commission in Singapore, to let them know the embassy evacuation was happening.
If you’d like to get in touch about one of our tailored history sessions for your school, get in touch with our Education Officer Chris Davey by emailing education@airforcemuseum.co.nz.
This is a FREE resource - just let us know what we can do.
#burnsidehighschool #vietnamwar #nzdf #rnzaf ... See MoreSee Less
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Good to see Burnsides history department Is proactive, as it was when I was a student there - late 60’s early 70’s. I first heard the logic of - ‘How do you know where you are going if you don’t know where you have come from’. This has stayed with me for life. It’s a pity some current world leaders did not study history.