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
URGENT CLARIFICATION: We’ve been alerted to a considerable amount of ongoing confusion (thanks to both of our readers who got in touch) between the Austin A40 Devon and the de Havilland DH104 Devon, so we’re stepping in to clear things up before this discombobulation reaches fever pitch.
The confusion is understandable of course.
As well as sharing a name, the Austin Devon and the de Havilland Devon were both good looking machines for their day, and their streamlined designs have stood the test of time.
To help the inexperienced Devon spotters to tell our twins apart, we’ve prepared a handy three-step guide.
The first, and possibly most telltale giveaway, is the Austin Devon did not come fitted with an astrodome for navigation at night.
The de Havilland, which made a superb navigational trainer, had a capacious dome which was perfect for sextant work.
Sadly, Ausin owners would have to crane their necks out the window while in motion to get a decent navigational fix on the skies above, making for erratic driving.
The second dead giveaway is under the bonnets.
The de Havilland was a twin, powered by a pair of six-cylinder 345-horsepower DH Gipsy Queen engines, which could take the Devon from 0 to 378 km/h (and a speeding ticket) in no time at all.
The Austin Devon was a little more sedate, with its 1.2 litre four-cylinder engine producing a more modest 42 horsepower, and a top speed rumoured to be around 110 km/h at horizontal jandal.
Finally - and you will kick yourself when it is pointed out - the easiest way to tell them apart is by their colour schemes.
The RNZAF’s 30 Devons came in a fetching main plane grey and international orange colour scheme, designed for high visibility.
The Austin Devon came with a much wider colour range, but no two tone offering like the gorgeous RNZAF de Havillands.
But Austin customers were spoiled for choice when it came to low visibility camouflage.
The Austin choices were Portland grey with beige upholstery and fawn carpets; blue with brown upholstery and brown carpets; mist green with beige upholstery and fawn carpets; black with brown upholstery and brown carpets; or brown with brown upholstery and brown carpets.
That’s a lot of fawn, beige and brown!
So there you have it. Never confuse your Devons again.
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We're positively bedeviled with confusion so we neeed urgent clarifications
I'm so glad you cleared that up, I've always been confused between the two.
Can't say I've ever seen a Devon, but I have helped push a DH104... Shifted her from her previous home, down the road and onto Ashburton airfield to her new home.
Both have a propensity to leak oil.
Another glorious clarification. It's giving Moira Rose and even funnier if one reads it in her voice (in one's head of course....)
The one in the two-tone picture looks very much like the model that tried to take my neighbour's TV aerial off, one day in late 1970s. My brother was doing the steering and he and party had dropped into Whakatane on the way back to Ohakea. I suggested a low fly-by of my workshop when they left, but didn't think the fly-by would be *that* low. He later told me that when they reached Taupo they got clearance to fly down the lake at fifty feet, like the Dam Busters. I said the Dam Busters did it at night and were being shot at.
I always found if they were parked that the shiny chrome hub caps gave away the confusion as to which was the Austin version - however if they were both flying ????
This was the first plane I ever owned. It was a familiar sight around the airfields of Shirley and the town site of the university.
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Admiral Steve Koehler, Commander US Pacific Fleet and Lieutenant General Laura Lenderman, Deputy Commander US Pacific Air Forces, dropped by to pay their respects at our Roll of Honour, hosted by Air Force Museum of New Zealand Director Brett Marshall.
They laid poppies beside the names of Kiwi aviators Melvin Greenslade and William McCloud, who were aboard RNZAF Avenger NZ2530 when it was destroyed by flak during a raid on Rabaul in May 1944. They were flying as part of a joint strike with a flight of 12 US Navy aircraft on that day.
Admiral Koehler and Lt General Lenderman are both pilots and were in Christchurch on a stop off to Antarctica – so what better to do with some spare time than visit an aircraft museum?
During his career as a Navy pilot Admiral Koehler completed 600 aircraft carrier landings. Admiral Koehler flew A4 Skyhawks, so it was trip down memory lane for him to see our Scooter which he recalled as a highly manoeuvrable and capable aircraft.
The United States Pacific Fleet and US Pacific Air Forces are responsible for an area stretching from the Artic to Antarctica.
The fleet consists of more than 200 ships, including six aircraft carriers, and is headquartered at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. US Pacific Air Forces is also based in Hawaii and its resources include 375 aircraft and 45,000 Air Force Personnel.
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Very nice bloke. My team met him at the AWM Mitchell annex about 8 months ago.
Rob Tuttell