And I really appreciate the thought they put into displaying the Hudson. I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw Hendon’d one because it was crammed in with a lot of other planes, and was on all three wheels. There was no intimacy with it. Here at Wigram they’d very cleverly used an authentic tail jack and thus lowered the nose so the public can get a sense of the interior, which is immaculate. Photos cannot do this one justice.

Hi mmitch. They have around 30-35 aircraft on display, which is a big museum for NZ. A few are not fully restored, like the Catalina, but almost all are able to be seen by the public which is great because before Wigram closed many were stored where public access was impossible.

As for the pilots, I agree. I used to know the guy who made them all, and each and every one were modelled from people on the base, moulded from their faces . In fact, John, the guy who made them, is the the guy who the Skyhawk pilot is modelled on. He used to think of this as his little in-joke that ‘he’ was flying the Skyhawk when in reality he was a Safety and Surface Corporal.

Here is the world’s rarest aircraft (well…one of them) The one and only exisiting Avro 626. Behind it is the Anson, the Harvard, the Spitfire Mk XVIe and the Avenger with wing folded

This is an excellent scale model made by two of the elderly volunteer guides at the museum. It depicts Wigram in 1942, with loads of Oxfords, Harvards and Vildebeestes, etc. I ran the lens of the video camera around the rim of this model a few times, and when you watch it back from down at ‘eye-level’, it looks really impressive, just like flying over the real Wigram…almost (well, at least the model doesn’y have dog-box houses built all over the place like the base now!)

The Vampire fighter (they have a two seater too on display, and another vampire is on loan to the AFC at Wanaka)

This Replica Bleriot XI represents NZ’s first military aircraft, dubbed ‘Brittania’. The real one was taken on charge in 1914, and flown by NZ’s first military pilot, Joe Hammond. This was till a public dosplay where he decided to take a woman as his passenger rather than the stuffy politicians who were all eager to have a ride. She became the first woman in NZ to fly in a plane, and he lost his job! The aircraft was stored, then sent to Britain when WWI broke out. This replica was made by volunteers in the 1980’s, and is very nice. The lady has been added within the last ten years, she never used to be there when I was based at Wigram!

Here is their only aircraft that has to endure outdoor storage, and even this won’t be for much longer as an expansion to the main building is planned. The RNZAF’s last Andover…

Here’s the other one. For some reason I decided to photograph the UGLY Gannet instead of the ME109, I don’t know why. Can anyone recognise it from this poor angle?

Sadly I am too big to have had a go… the opening is just for kids, D’oh!