New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum

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The New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum was an aerospace museum located at Wanaka Airport on New Zealand's South Island. It closed in March 2011 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 and housed in a new building at the Wanaka Airport. It was opened in 1993 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. The museum was funded, in part, by grants from the Community Trust of Otago.Alpine Fighter CollectionThe Alpine Fighter Collection is a collection of vintage aircraft based at the New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum at Wanaka established by helicopter and deer entrepreneur Sir Tim Wallis.The collection was started in 1984 with the purchase of a North American P-51 Mustang from John Dilley of the USA. Painted in RNZAF colours, it attracted much media attention as the first flying Second World War fighter seen in New Zealand for some years and played a major part in the 1980s and 1990s expansion of the Warbird movement in New Zealand.