Stunning, amazing, brilliant, with life like figures telling the stories of fighter pilots – that’s what we discovered at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre. Sir Peter Jackson’s collection of WW1 aeroplanes combined with the skilful settings created by Weta Workshops made the Knights of the Sky exhibition at Omaka an amazing day out to our stay in Blenheim.
Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre
Two replica aircraft standing in the grounds outside the building set the scene, a Hawker Hurricane and a Stuka. We walked through the doors into the low light display area showing tableaus of aircraft in the skies and pilots fighting for their countries. Photos, posters and story-boards cover the walls, and the sound of machine gun fire rat-tat-tats around the gallery, followed by the haunting notes of “We’ll meet again” coming over the loud speakers.
Shooting with a rifle from an Etrich Taube
The Airco De Havilland was designed as a “pusher”, an aircraft with the propeller at the rear. The machine gun can then be fired forwards without any risk of hitting the turning propeller.
Pusher aircraft, Airco De Havilland
We wandered through the uniform gallery, which displays the actual uniforms and artefacts from allied pilots together with photos and stories of their lives, making looking through this part of the museum all very personal. French, Belgium, Italian, Australian and American outfits were on show, including dress uniforms, jackets, hats, and leather flying coats. Captain Eddie Rickenbacher was the highest scoring American pilot of WW1 and purchased his flying “Teddy Bear” suit in France. The suit bears his hand painted name and the famous insignia of the US 94th Aero Squadron of a hat in a ring.
Captain Rickenbacher’s Teddy Bear flying suit
What was that pilot doing on the wing of his plane, we wondered? This certainly brought the true story of of “Grid’s Great Escape” to life. New Zealander Lt Grid Caldwell collided with a fellow squadron member in the air, and although the other plane landed safely, Grid's plane went into a dive. After falling 2000ft the dive developed into a right handed semi-flat spin. Caldwell climbed half out of the cockpit and realised that by placing his left foot on the lower port main-plane, and grasping the port centre strut with his left hand the plane stabilised and he could fly it with his left hand and foot. He guided the crippled aircraft over the front line trenches and jumped off just as it was about to crash land. What an amazing feat!
Grid Caldwell guiding his plane over the trenches
The exploits of the Red Baron features in the museum, who had his Jasta painted bright red, in an attempt to intimidate novice pilots. The nimble Jastas had their underbellies painted light blue making them hard to see while flying high. When possible the German pilots fell on their prey from above with the sun behind them. The expression “Beware the Hun in the Sun” dates from this time.
. The Red Baron and fellow German planes
The Red Baron, Baron Manfred von Ricthofen had an unbeaten record of 80 kills before being shot in the chest and he managed to land his tri-plane in a beet field in the Somme Valley, and then died from his wounds. This area was occupied by an Australian gunnery unit who lifted his body from the wreckage. The troops then tore the plane to shreds as they gathered souvenirs, even removing clothing from the body.
The end of the Red Baron
Aviators had mutual respect for the skill of fellow pilots and this was extended to those considered enemies. This is shown by the gift of a silk pennant given by English officers to their German captors which states: Presented by the English Flying Officers who are Prisoners of War in Osnabruck, October 28th 1916.
Silk pennant given by English pilots to their fellow German pilots 
Diorama based on an actual photo
Morane Saulier stuck in the mud
Omaka is an amazing museum, with the sets bringing everything to life in visually stunning style. Each scene shows a little slice of life in the Great War, some imagined, and some from actual incidents. There is plenty of room for expansion, we were told, with plans to bring WW11 aircraft into the museum at a later date.
Interestingly not all of the aircraft were replicas, some were originals and a good proportion of them able to be flown. Amazing!
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