{"id":215775,"date":"2026-01-04T03:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/215775\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T03:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T03:34:10","slug":"wanganui-aero-club-preparing-for-thousands-of-visitors-as-open-day-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/215775\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanganui Aero Club preparing for thousands of visitors as open day looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBasically, we\u2019ve doubled everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison said the event would feature aerial displays, along with the chance to see aircraft up close.<\/p>\n

Planes making the trip include Vaughn Davis\u2019 De Havilland Chipmunk and John Luff\u2019s DeHavilland Venom jet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Venom, a Cold War-era fighter jet,<\/a> was flown by air forces around the world in the 1950s and 1960s.<\/p>\n

Legend Aviation was bringing its North American Harvard for paid flights, and the aero club would have at least two planes available for 15-minute flights \u2013 \u201can affordable way to get up in the air\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also hoping to get a Lockheed Electra up from the South Island, which is a super cool plane.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Davis brought the Chipmunk to Whanganui<\/a> to meet Royal Air Force veteran Bill Macleod, who flew the Chipmunk while training in early 1972.<\/p>\n

\"VaughnVaughn Davis’ DHC-1 Chipmunk is returning to Whanganui for the 2026 Wanganui Aero Day. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a bit of a juggling act with the weather for the days before and on the day,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat affects which ones can even arrive, but we\u2019ve got a lot of planes in the pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Chronicle last year, aero club chief flying instructor Johnathan Mauchline said the open day attracted a few hundred people pre-Covid-19, but 4500 came in 2024.<\/p>\n

Morrison said the club had been \u201coverwhelmed\u201d at the 2025 event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was beyond our expectations, crazy, pretty much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found that people who own planes really love sharing them. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey do it at great expense as well. With some of the jets, the cost of just starting them is mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luff told the Chronicle in 2013 that the Venom burned an average of 22 litres per minute, and 70 litres per minute at full throttle and low altitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the sort of thing you necessarily just take out for a Sunday drive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Morrison said club membership was stable.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike all clubs, we\u2019d love more involvement from members.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for aero day, we get past members, family of members, friends of members, and everyone pulls together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge number of people we need to get on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NZ International Commercial Pilot Academy will operate from the aero club until mid-2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Morrison said people from the academy would be available to help out gthis month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll make the most of the six months we\u2019re all together. I\u2019m sure we can co-exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wanganui Aero Day runs from 9am to 4pm at the Whanganui Airport. <\/p>\n

Entry is $5 for kids (8 to 14) and 15 for adults ($10 for Super GoldCard holders).<\/p>\n

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily Whanganui District Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBasically, we\u2019ve doubled everything.\u201d Morrison said the event would feature aerial displays, along with the chance to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[128236,806,682,11783,18836,5972,2082,685,12814,111,43,139,1536,69,1118,5270,5493,54981,60781,34293,130347,2742,9717,93281],"class_list":["post-215775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-aero","tag-as","tag-being","tag-brought","tag-club","tag-day","tag-for","tag-last","tag-looms","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-one","tag-open","tag-overwhelmed","tag-popularity","tag-preparing","tag-reinforcements","tag-thousands","tag-visitors","tag-wanganui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}