Monday, 27 April 2015

Aircraft at Sir Peter Jackson's Great War Exhibition in the Former Dominion Museum, Wellington

A trip to Wellington last week provided an amazing kaliedoscope of World War 1 remembrance experiences - the parade of Peter Jackson's WW 1 vehicles through the streets of Wellington from Parliament Grounds to the new WW 1 Pukeahu Memorial Park, with a flyover of three WW 1 biplanes (a DH 5 and two SE 5As), a visit to the Sir Peter Jackson Great War Exhibition,  the Anzac Day dawn service and The Vintage Aviator Anzac Day open day at Masterton, all held in wonderful weather.

The Sir Peter Jackson exhibition contains some aircraft displays (no surprises there) including this aircraft which I understand is a Maurice Farman Type MF 11bis in Belgian Air Force markings.

I did know that The Vintage Aviator had such an aircraft (actually a Henri Farman F40), which was swapped from the RAF Museum in the UK.  However I understand that the display aircraft is a non flying replica that has been made at the TVAL workshops in Wellington.  Can anyone confirm any further details of these aircraft?

And in another area of the exhibition is this wing which I think is the top wing of an Albatros D VA.  As can be seen there are also aircraft paintings in this area.  The gun in the foreground is a model of a large gun from a battleship that was mounted on railway bogies and is painted in an accurate bright camoflague scheme.  However the gun suffered from several deficiencies in that it could only fire in the fixed direction of the railway track, and when it was fired, the recoil blew the whole lot off the tracks!


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4 comments:

  1. Zac "Handbag" Yates28 April 2015 at 15:24

    I'm very excited and intrigued by the Farman, fingers crossed it bodes well for a flying example or three down the track. Hopefully someone out there can share some info on this example.

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  2. Anonymous28 April 2015 at 17:27

    The Belgian aircraft is a Maurice Farman MF.11bis, not a Henri Farman Type 20, or HF.20. The aircraft the RAF Museum traded with TVAL was an Henri Farman F.40, so that machine in the exhibition is not based on it. Echo Handbag's post above though, it'll be interesting to see either of them flying.

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  3. Sir Minty28 April 2015 at 23:24

    Thanks for that Anonymous Nuuuman. Bowing to your superior knowledge of these things, I have altered the post . Thanks for your clarification.

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  4. Anonymous29 April 2015 at 12:32

    :) No worries Minty.

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