Description of the attraction
The Central Australian Aviation Museum was opened in 1979 in the town of Alice Springs. The museum exhibits are housed in the hangar of the former Connellan Airways in the Aralwen area, which was once the city's airfield. Nearby is the home of local aviation pioneer Eddie Connellan.
Connellan bought the hangar in 1939 from a factory in Sydney and brought it to Alice Springs - the headquarters of his small airline that delivered mail and other freight services throughout the Northern Territories. It was Eddie Connellan who made the first flight in July 1939, which did not start from the city airfield.
In the late 1970s, the public committee of Alice Springs allocated $ 25,000 to restore Connellan's hangar, which by that time had practically fallen into disrepair, and turned it into an Aviation Museum. In 1982, a diorama pavilion "Kukaburra" was opened nearby, and in 1983 a twin-engine monoplane "Dove" was hoisted on a pedestal.
Today in the museum you can get acquainted with the history of aviation in Central Australia and the state of the Northern Territories, starting with the first flight of De Havilland, made in October 1921. Exhibits include the Flying Doctor aircraft of the Royal Service, the Wackett trainer, the aforementioned twin-engine monoplane, the Australian-built Kookaburra glider, the Derwent jet engine, numerous aviation relics, historical photographs and other items.
The Kookaburra diorama pavilion tells the tragic story of the ill-fated flight of Hitchcock and Anderson, who died in the desert in 1929 while searching for Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm. The video explains the circumstances of the tragedy, and in the pavilion itself you can see the remains of the Westland Vigion aircraft, in which the aviators were killed. The wreckage was found in 1978 and donated to the museum.
