Visiting air museums on vacation is essential, and often the sole reason for travel. My folks live in Australia and I’m fortunate enough to visit that country periodically, since my airline employer kindly allows me the privilege and stress of using discounted standby tickets. Stress? On the last trip I was given a boarding card at –15 minutes for one flight and told to sprint to the distant gate. My bag didn’t make it of course, but I digress.
I’d been to a couple of museums in Australia previously and Darwin’s is dominated by what I believe is one of only two B-52s on display outside the US [www.darwinsairwar.com.au].
Mareeba, an hour’s drive west from Cairns, was a major US Army Air Force base in 1942/43, hosting B-17s and Airacobras. Warbird Adventures Aviation Museum has a DC-3 and a Kitty Hawk in renovation and the active fleet comprises a Nanchang CJ-6, Chipmunk, Winjeel and a Harvard.
Since Qantas was born there, The Qantas Founders Outback Museum is at Longreach, close to the geographical centre of Queensland and therefore miles from anywhere. The Stockmans’ Hall of Fame is the town’s other attraction, but only if you’re into sheep shearing etc! There is a Qantas 747 on display, whose fin, due to the flat terrain, can be seen miles from town. Most of the population turned out to see it land. Senior pilots practised short landings in the simulator before launching with minimum fuel while white trucks were parked beside the runway to mark the point beyond which a safe stop became unlikely. It got in first try of course, and the runway has since been lengthened.
Beside the 747 is Australia’s first jet transport, a 707–138, which was resurrected at Southend and flown to Sydney in 2006. (In a perfect example of right place, right time, while waiting at a domestic gate I was startled from my jet-lagged stupor to see it arrive from Nadi on its delivery flight). The amount of resource and effort expended on that project may be an indication of the importance Australians place on their aviation heritage. Qantas, crucial for so long as the isolated nation’s link to the outside world, remains a national icon. All things being equal, I wonder if there would have been an appetite for doing the same if BOAC’s first Comet had found itself derelict 10,500 miles away from home?
Another museum, continuing the trend of location choices based on historical significance rather than tourism potential, is the Museum of Australian Army Flying at RAAF Oakey, nearly 100 miles west of Brisbane. Memorabilia displays and artefacts accompany a dozen or so nicely preserved and presented aircraft emphasising the aviation heritage of the Army as distinct from that of the RAAF, going back to the Service’s WW1 origins.
The excellent Australian War Memorial and Museum in Canberra, with its prominent location, imposing main building and sobering avenue of individual shrines to conflicts, is testimony to the reverence reserved by Australia for its war dead. I would venture to suggest that this alone justifies a visit to the capital, there being not much else to see or do there.
A visit to Melbourne should include the Moorabbin Air Museum, at the five runway general aviation field in the eastern suburbs. Compact but stuffed with material and easily reached, its largest aircraft are a Viscount and a Bristol Freighter.
However, on my most recent this trip I revisited two museums in SE Queensland, and ticked off a new one in Victoria.
The Queensland Air Museum, born in 1974, has been steadily expanding at Caloundra since 1986. The original Hangar 1 accommodates display cabinets, engines, artefacts and six small aircraft (a Spitfire being the largest). The other exhibits roasted in the brutal sunshine on the grass until Hangar 2, open on two sides, boosted the covered area considerably. Most aircraft can now be sheltered so renovation has accelerated.
British influence on Australian aviation is exemplified by exhibits such as the two Meteors, one with target tow gear, two Hunters, one and a bit Sea Vixens, a Canberra, Wessex, Gannett, Sea Venom, Vampire (plus a nose section allowing a fascinating insight into its wooden construction), Dove, Heron and Beagle Basset.
The Sea Vixen is a significant exhibit for me. Donated by the Royal Navy to a technical college near my school in Singapore, I periodically explored this very machine in the 1970s. After some years as tourist attraction at Sentosa it was rescued along with two other aircraft and shipped to Caloundra.
General MacArthur’s DC-3 is in Airlines of New South Wales colours, and Prince Charles once flew the Caribou, structurally incomplete but open for internal inspection. Latest restoration project is a DH(Aus) Drover, once the mainstay of the Flying Doctor Service. Transports include a Viscount (nose section), Nord 262 Mohawk, GAF Nomad, Metroliner, F-27 and a voluminous Piaggio P166 Portofino pusher twin-piston, flaunting its extrovert ‘50s Italian styling. Apart from the well presented DC-3 (which flew under the Sydney Harbour Bridge), these airliners are awaiting their turn in the restoration queue.
Other curiosities include a Jindivik drone, Lockheed Ventura (incomplete), Spitfire Vc/MkVIII and a Sabre Mk31. It’s well worth the hour’s drive from Brisbane, especially if en route to the Sunshine Coast resorts or perhaps the late Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, but particularly since the smaller Caboolture Warplane Museum is en route!
The cloud on the QAM’s horizon is the attentions of property developers, which may force the airfield’s closure and a difficult relocation for the volunteer and donation-supported organisation.
Caboolture Warplane and Flight Heritage Museum is 40 minutes up the Bruce Highway from Brisbane, and concentrates on WW2 aviation. A Mustang, Winjeel, two Wirraways, a Tiger Moth, a Nanchang and a Nieuport live here, and with the exception of the Nieuport, are available for joy-rides when not away participating in air shows.
The hangar is home to a Mig-15, an anomaly given the museum’s mission statement, but as the cockpit is available for occupation, arguably an asset. On this visit, three of the aforementioned WW2 types were also in residence also. There is an extensive plastic model collection and comprehensive displays of engines, parts, equipment and information displays on local aviation dramas. These include “The Stinson Rescue”, “The Lincoln crash on Mt Superbus” in which a navigation error caused a sad end to a medevac mission, and the locally famous mid air collision between two Ansons in which the pilot of the top one, all the other crew having bailed, successfully landed them both! I was engrossed for far longer than I expected.
An added bonus at Caboolture was a visit to The Beaufort Restoration Group. The machine was still in its major component parts, and I felt slightly stupid having to be told that the reason the jig supporting the wing centre section and engines was so high off the floor was of course so the landing gear could be hung beneath. Near complete a few months ago, an airworthiness inspection found faults that required significant disassembly and modification, a setback to the group’s objective of achieving flight in time for the RAAF’s 90th anniversary in 2011. A good hour was spent here talking to the mechanics and the project leader.
In pieces in a corner of the hangar was “the Pommie Beaufort”, a phrase spoken with good-natured patriotic fervour by our hosts! The restoration aircraft was originally assembled in Australia and served until written off in a ground loop, but the “inferior” British built machine was simply taking up valuable space. I was asked to spread the word back home that here was an unwanted Beaufort restoration project available to the right bidder!
The RAAF Museum is south west of Melbourne at Point Cook, the birthplace of the Australian Flying Corps. It claims the title of oldest continuously operational air force base in the world, although whilst still technically an RAAF base, military aviating ceased in 1992 leaving only museum related activity. I explored the deserted land-side area, largely untouched since the RAAF training base closed, and civilian Cessnas and Pipers typify today’s air traffic.
Display areas devoted to Australia’s aircraft industry, heritage, the two World Wars, other conflicts and peacekeeping / civil aid lead to the first aircraft hangar. Devoted to training, this having been the primary role of RAAF Bases Point Cook and Laverton (a few miles north and also closed), collectively called RAAF Base Williams. The beautifully restored specimens include a Maurice Farman Longhorn, Avro 504K, CT-4, Vampire and Aermacchi 326. Dimly lit, as is so often the case with museums, photography here is difficult.
The Technology Hangar offers an SE5a, Supermarine Seagull (Walrus in RAF service), Boston, F.4, Iroquois, another Vampire and a Bloodhound missile. The more photographically friendly Restoration Hangar is viewed from an elevated walkway along one wall, providing a good view of the current project, the last surviving Mosquito with an RAAF history. A sectional display shows the fuselage construction and I hadn’t realised there was so much balsa involved.
The naturally lit third hangar also has a viewing platform along one side. Occupants here included a Catalina fuselage (its wings are under reconstruction elsewhere on site), a Jindivik and a Pika, its manned version, which served as a research aircraft as well as facilitating training for the Jindivik operators. The Pika is unique as an Australian designed and built manned jet aircraft; and the Jindivik is Australia’s most successful aviation export program (600 built). Among their other companions are an Avon Sabre, Boomerang, Hawker Demon, Avro Cadet and a Mirage.
In the spaces between the hangars sit the transports; an early C-130, a Bristol 170, Caribou and an HS-748. Available space disallows display of all the museum’s aircraft and another Hercules and a Canberra are among the unseen, while I was disappointed not to see an F-111.
Twenty miles further down the Princes Highway is Avalon, opened in 1953 primarily as an aircraft manufacturing base. It now hosts a limited airline service (mainly by Jetstar), a Qantas maintenance base, training, the biennial Avalon Air Show and the DC-10 water bomber deployed to Australia for the dry season.
Australia’s pride in its flying heritage is perhaps intensified by aviation’s importance in the contexts of geographic isolation on a global scale and the historical difficulties in domestic travel. The sheer expanse of a country containing numerous isolated communities brought about a heavy reliance on aviation. The Flying Doctor Service is revered as a national institution, as is Qantas, despite recent trials and tribulations.
There are no Australian museums on the scale of Duxford, Wright-Patterson or Le Bourget, but the Aussies do an excellent job and even the smaller museums exude passion and enthusiasm for their collections. Each has much of interest, especially for the overseas visitor
GAR wants to interact with its readers so if you have a question for the author or a comment to make on this feature, please click on the button below. The best comments will appear right here on GAR.2010-04-06 - Brian Green
I must declare a vested interest in this splendid article....the writer is my son !!
Readers may like to know that his interest in aviation was fired when we moved to Singapore in 1971.
As a 10 yr. old in UK, he was passionate about railways and trains,as the main line London to Edinburgh was at the bottom of our garden in Morpeth, Northumberland.
He was greatly disappointed to find that the rail network in Singapore consisted of a single line track running to Malaysia, and I believe there were just two trains a day........hardly likely to stimulate a young lad.
We had to find an alternative interest. We looked at ships. Lots of them but they moved very slowly.
So it was that we tried planes, visiting the then International Airport at Paya Lebar .
The rest as we say 'is history'.
Ultimately he achieved his goal to fly commercially.
Incidentally his good friend Robert Milton, equally passionate about planes, fulfilled his ambition, becoming the CEO of Air Canada.
These two 'young lads' are still the ultimate aviation enthusiasts.
2010-03-31 - Leanne Layfield
Loved reading the article. Thanks for the coverage of the Queensland Air Museum in Caloundra. They hold a special event each year on the first weekend in July called Open Cockpit Weekend and its a special time to visit with the aircraft open for inspection and often the RAAF are in attendance with the very latest on display. Caloundra is a great Aussie beach destination for international visitors and the Queensland Air Museum is a terrific asset.
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