The upgraded RAAF Point Cook museum will reopen its doors in April for the first time in two years

Come and see some of Australia’s most famous warbirds as historic RAAF Base Point Cook reopens to the public.

The world’s oldest air force base and its museum — complete with Canberra bombers and F-111 displays — is to reopen to the public in April.

RAAF Base Point Cook, which has been operational since 1914, will officially open its revamped museum on April 13, kitted out with new immersive exhibits and aircraft.

The museum’s main attraction will be the ‘Strike Experience’, which features aircraft that served in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, including the Canberra Bomber, F-111 and the F/A -18 Classic Hornet.

The exhibit will feature interviews from pilots who flew these warbirds, as well as a 15 minute immersive video with light and sound shows which take viewers inside the aircraft during battle.

A second new hangar filled with aircraft from World War II will also be ready by the April opening.

The museum has been shut since before Covid due to the construction.

RAAF Group Captain Robert Coopes said the new exhibitions would give visitors an experience they would never forget.

“We go from a sort of a contemplative and reflective space our old galleries … to the strike hangar where you’re up close to the aircraft,” he said.

“We were able to get guys that were the aviators, pilots and navigators, systems operators for those aircraft interviewed and tell those oral history stories, which add so much to the experience.

“This is the oldest military base on the planet and it’s significant that we’ve managed to maintain our presence here.”

While the upgrades to the existing museum are yet to be officially launched, the RAAF has set its sights on building an even bigger museum at the base within the next 10 years.

“We’ve got a chunk a chunk of vacant land here, which you can come straight off Point Cook road into the car park” Group Captain Coopes said.

“That will now go through all the planning processes.

“That larger museum which will be purposely designed then to have the whole collection.”

The RAAF used the Point Cook base from 1921 to 1992, where it then sat in limbo for 15 years before it was redeveloped and launched again in 2007.

Bookings for the museum will open in two weeks on the RAAF website.