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
CRASH OVER CHRISTCHURCH: One hundred years ago today, on 17 March 1926, Captain Frederick James 'Jim' Horrell and his passenger Lewis Martin Reid were killed when their Bristol Fighter crashed a short distance from an orphanage in Papanui, Christchurch.
Jim Horrell was a 34-year-old veteran of the Gallipoli campaign, who went on to become a Royal Flying Corps pilot.
Lewis Reid was a 22-year-old mess waiter, who was on the flight for a ride.
In a new blog, our Research Curator Simon Moody traces the story of the crash, and its significance as the first accident on home soil for our fledgling air force.
📰 Read all about it here: airforcemuseum.co.nz/blog/first-to-fall-100-years-after-the-loss-of-captain-jim-horrell/ ... See MoreSee Less
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MAREE’S BACK: Roll the clock back to May 1972, and young Maree Ellis had arrived at Wigram ready to start her new life in the RNZAF.
Maree grew up in Ashburton and decided to join the air force while she was a teenager. She needed to be 17 years and six months old to join up, so the day she was eligible she signed on the dotted line.
“I knew mum and dad wouldn’t be keen for me to move from home to Christchurch and find a job, but that they would be fine if I was joining the air force. So, it was my ticket out of a small town!’’
She trained as a librarian (which later became the publications specialist trade) and served for five years, with postings including Wigram, Ohakea, Wellington, and Whenuapai.
“I loved my time in the RNZAF, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. For me it was all about the comradeship – I’m still in touch with most of my recruit course.’’
Maree married RNZAF air electronics operator Bill Pickering, and they had two children. After Bill left the air force he worked as a pilot for Air Pacific, and they raised the family in Fiji.
While they were there Maree got a job with the United Nations and ended up working as a human resources manager, looking after the UN team working on 10 islands in the Pacific.
These days Maree is semi-retired and lives in Brisbane. She dropped in to check in on Wigram on her way to the airport to return to Australia.
Her favourite place in the RNZAF was the barrack block at Worser Bay in Wellington, and she was photographed with the noisy Harvard, which used to keep her up at night at Wigram.
Nice to see you Maree and welcome home!
#brisbane #rnzaf #unitednationasfiji #rnzaf ... See MoreSee Less
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The trade was originally called Publications Specialist (when I joined in 1986) and later became ‘Librarian’.
GLORIA ON HIGH: Her name was Gloria Lyons, a young patient in Christchurch Hospital in 1943, and she responded to a plea for correspondence with some lonely airman in the Pacific by writing them a letter.
She had no idea her name would soon be immortalised on a P-40 Kittyhawk and she'd be a media star.
And now, more than 80 years later that celebrated Kittyhawk has survived against the odds thanks to the vision of aviation collector John Smith, and some incredible restoration work by conservationists.
In a new two-part blog from The Aero Historian, the Journal of the Aviation Historical Society of New Zealand, the full Gloria Lyons story is told.
Tuck on in for a fascinating Sunday morning read.... airforcemuseum.co.nz/blog/the-life-and-times-of-gloria-lyons-part-one/
And if you're in Marlborough you can see Gloria in the flesh at the Omaka Heritage Aviation#theaerohistorianohistorian ... See MoreSee Less
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This is a great wartime story. I made a 'toy' Gloria G for my Grandson. On the other side it is painted as the Wairarapa Wildcat.
And many of the Team who worked the Restoration
Gloria lived near where we were In Bankstown, NSW , I think, if I remember correctly, she was Mrs Eamon or a similar.
A couple of photos here from May 21 when we moved Gloria from our hangar on to the AHC.
Thank you to John Smith for his care, preservation and custodianship of her.
And Mr George Smith - John's brother
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