The New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum was an

aerospace museum An aviation museum, air museum, or air and space museum is a museum exhibiting the history and artifacts of aviation. In addition to actual, replica or accurate reproduction aircraft, exhibits can include photographs, maps, models, dioramas, cl ...

located at Wanaka Airport on

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. It closed in and was replaced in December 2011 by the Warbirds & Wheels museum of military aircraft as well as classic and vintage automobiles and motorcycles. The museum was founded by Sir

Tim Wallis Sir Timothy William Wallis (born 9 September 1938) is a New Zealand businessman and aviation entrepreneur. He pioneered live deer capture from helicopters, which led to a significant industry in New Zealand. He was a leader and international re ...

and housed in a new building at the Wanaka Airport. It was opened in by retired Group Captain Colin Gray. Its first curator was Ian Brodie. In 1996 museum became one of the first aerospace museums on the internet. The museum includes the Alpine Fighter Collection, dedicated to New Zealand's fighters during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The museum was funded, in part, by grants from the Community Trust of Otago.

Alpine Fighter Collection

The Alpine Fighter Collection is a collection of vintage aircraft based at the New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum at Wanaka established by

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

and

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

entrepreneur Sir

. The collection was started in 1984 with the purchase of a

North American P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...

from John Dilley of the US. Painted in

RNZAF The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) ( mi, Te Tauaarangi o Aotearoa, "The Warriors of the Sky of New Zealand"; previously ', "War Party of the Blue") is the aerial service branch of the New Zealand Defence Force. It was formed from New Zeala ...

colours, it attracted much media attention as the first flying Second World War fighter seen in

for some years and played a major part in the 1980s and 1990s expansion of the

Warbird A warbird is any vintage military aircraft now operated by civilian organizations and individuals, or in some instances, by historic arms of military forces, such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, the RAAF Museum Historic Flight, or the ...

movement in New Zealand. The collection undertook a pioneering effort in recovering and restoring Warbirds from the post-glasnost

Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. ...

. It arranged and funded the first restorations to flying condition of

Polikarpov I-16 The Polikarpov I-16 (russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain ope ...

s (six restored) and

Polikarpov I-153 The Polikarpov I-153 ''Chaika'' (Russian ''Чайка'', "Seagull") was a late 1930s Soviet biplane fighter. Developed as an advanced version of the I-15 with a retractable undercarriage, the I-153 fought in the Soviet-Japanese combats in Mong ...

s (three restored). It also restored the first

Nakajima Ki-43 The Nakajima Ki-43 ''Hayabusa'' (, "Peregrine falcon", "Army Type 1 Fighter" ) is a single-engine land-based tactical fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was o ...

Hayabusa to fly since the 1940s. In 1988, the collection's core members organized the first

Warbirds over Wanaka Warbirds over Wanaka is a biennial air show in Wānaka, held on the Easter weekend of even-numbered years since 1988. It is held at Wānaka Airport, 10 km south-east of Wānaka, in the southern South Island of New Zealand. Initially conceive ...

airshow to showcase the collection - it attracted 14,000 people. The collection continues to provides the basis of the biannual Warbirds over Wanaka Airshow which attracted over 100,000 visitors in 2006. The collection was reduced by sales in the later years. The sole airworthy component is a

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

Mk IIA, with a

de Havilland Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force, RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and ...

FB5 and Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a reproduction on static display. Amongst the aircraft that were eventually transferred to the new Warbirds & Wheels museum were the Hawker Hurricane and the replica S.E.5a.

References

Bibliography

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External links

NZFPM website

Warbirds Over Wanaka
Aerospace museums in New Zealand Museums in Otago Wānaka Military and war museums in New Zealand {{NewZealand-museum-stub

Alpine Fighter Collection

See also

References

Bibliography

External links