The Sunderland V is an artefact of national and international significance and is part of New Zealand’s Military Aviation History. The Sunderland V is a flying boat that operated from Lauthala Bay, Fiji and at its home base at Hobsonville, Auckland as part of No. 5 Squadron RNZAF from the 1940s to the 1960s. Our Sunderland is a rare survivor of an entire class of large, four engine flying boats that pioneered both international air travel to Australia and New Zealand and long-range military ocean reconnaissance from the 1930s to the early 1950s.It is one of just three surviving examples of the Short Sunderland flying boat retaining a military configuration.

New Zealand was the last military operators of the Sunderland in the world our Sunderland NZ4115 was retired on 22 December 1966, gifted to MOTAT, and moved here on 22 February 1967.