RNZAF’s Te Whare Toroa - The Home of the Albatross – officially opens

Te Whare Toroa – or the home of the albatross, the name inspired by the toroa on No. 5 Squadron’s crest - was on Thursday opened by Minister of Defence Judith Collins, KC, who described the new facility and fleet of four P-8As as a “mission critical” capability for the New Zealand Defence Force.

The new hangars and buildings will support its four Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft as well as No. 5 Squadron personnel and operations.

“Te Whare Toroa provides essential, state-of-the-art infrastructure to support the RNZAF’s work in maritime surveillance, resource protection and disaster response,” Ms Collins said.

“The work you do from here – conducting maritime surveillance flights, resource protection and disaster relief missions, search and rescue deployments, and mission support and intelligence operations – safe-guards New Zealand, its interests and way of life."

“The P-8As were purchased for anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare as part of the Airborne Surveillance and Response Force, and this building is a critical part of that project to allow the platform to deliver the effects New Zealand needs.

“Defence personnel must have modern and fit-for-purpose equipment and infrastructure to be interoperable, combat-capable, and to deter actions that are adverse to our interests.”

Ms Collins signalled there will be more projects like this as the Government’s Defence Capability Plan, which outlines planned commitments worth $12 billion over the next four years and doubles defence spending by 2032, is implemented.

No. 5 Squadron Commanding Officer Wing Commander Mark Chadwick said he was delighted with the new facility.

“It’s had a major impact on our culture as for the first time in recent history all of our people are together in the same building. We are now operating, communicating and mixing with each other on a daily basis, which builds on our shared understanding of what we’re all trying to achieve,” said Wing Commander Chadwick.

“We now have staff from operations, maintenance and mission and support in the one facility which includes maintenance support facilities, spare parts warehouse, full flight simulator and a mission operations centre.”

He said historically New Zealand crews have relied on Australian Poseidon flight simulators to train but with the construction of a full-motion flight simulator in the new facility Australia will soon have the op-tion of training here. The simulator at No. 5 Squadron will be operational in 2026.

The facility cost more than $250 million. This was funded within the overall project budget of $2.3 billion that delivered the Poseidons in 2023, along with mission systems, ground support equipment and spare parts.