Sophie Conlon
A dedicated committee has been working behind the scenes for about a year to bring history to life at the Mount Gambier Regional Airport.
After securing $5000 initial funding from the District Council of Grant this month, the Mount Gambier Aviation Museum committee has released official plans to develop a Mount Gambier Aviation Museum.
Committee chair Chris Holden said phase one of the project – developing an historical walking trail and creating photo boards- should be completed in the next few months.
“We will continue to catalogue in the background and public facing sort of action points are developing a photo board telling the history of probably just the airport itself,” he said.
“We will start with that sort of public exhibition engagement approaches like the walking trail.
“So that’s a target to get that up and running in over the next couple of months, to give people a reason to come out here and actually visit.”
Once that is completed an extension would be built on the historical Bellman Hanger, opposite the airport terminal, to house the museum.
Head of collections Ian Fritsch has been collecting memorabilia, including engines, for years and hoped they could secure an aircraft for display at all times.
“We have been collecting stuff for years and years and years,” he said.
“I have a real interest in history, particularly military history, I’ve been at this airport since 1986 and I’ve heard a lot of stories and a lot of what’s happened at the airport since it started and so just it’s just an interest.”
An aircraft engineer by trade, Mr Fritsch said he was excited to get the engines working and eventually host engine run days.
The museum would tell the history of aviation across the whole Limestone Coast, with a focus on the military history of the airport.
Head of management and governance Don Dyson said it was important to understand history.
“This was a big RAAF base in Australia, there was 4000 people trained here, so that is a big nucleus we’re working around,” he said.
“But we’re also targeting the history of aviation in the area, so three airlines have come in, flying schools, flying doctors, fire bombing, air cadets, all those things.”
Of the 4000 people trained at the RAAF base 27 airman died, which Mr Dyson said the museum would pay homage to though memorial plaques.
With parts of the RAAF base, like the Bellman Hanger, still standing committee head and people and programming Ian McDonnell agreed it was important to preserve history.
“It is important to record history,” he said.
“And this was an important part of Mount Gambier.”
The actual museum was still a little while away as the committee looked to build an extension on the Bellman Hanger, though Mr Holden said it would have a traditional and engaging feel.
“At the moment the sky’s the limit,” he said.
“We don’t want to be a static space, we want to be proactive and encourage people to come in with their ideas and concepts.
Mr Dyson said it was exciting to see the vision take form.
“We’re feeling pretty excited, we can see our visions coming to reality,” he said.
“We’ve got part of the Bellman Hangar, we’ve done a plan for a museum building. So we’re at a stage where we’re starting to realise the vision that we’ve got and getting out to the real world.”
Mr Holden said volunteers would be needed to help deliver the project and hoped people would jump on board to help.
“I personally don’t feel you have to be absolutely passionate about aviation to be involved in this project,” he said.
“There’s no pressure but we’d love to see people out here and engaged in the space.”
For more information or to volunteer visit mountgambieraviationmuseum.org/
