Visited the RAAF Museum at Point Cook today. There was a Japanese tour group going through and being escorted by one of the Friends of the Museum old blokes who did a fine job of explaining the exhibits.

I have visited the RAAF Museum on many occasions in the past 20 years as the Point Cook base is surely one of the most beautiful aerodromes in Australia and I have a special affinity with the place since graduating from there in another life. I noticed today the old former living double-storey barracks wooden barracks near the parade ground have recently been jazzed up with new paint whereas in past years they were run-down cracked and peeling paint and home to nests of red back spiders. It must be costing a lot of money to rejuvenate these old quarters and I wonder who is paying for it.

But try and buy a cup of coffee at the RAAF Museum and you'll have no luck and its been like that for 20 years. Although the museum is widely advertised in tourist brochures they forget to say you should bring your own thermos flasks for tea or coffee because the RAAF cannot afford to put in a coin operated coffee machine inside the museum. Yet the owners of the site can afford thousands of dollars to pretty up old wooden buildings that have bare empty rooms. This despite having having world class historical aviation exhibits on display with many thousands of overseas and local visitors each year.

OK - so the museum doesn't attract tourist dollars because its a free museum with free tap water but how come the owners of the place refuse to install a hot drink vending machine or something more sophisticated than tap water for the visitors. I must say the musum staff are quite apologetic for the lack of a hot and cold drink vending machine but as the dispute between the RAAF and the original food contractor has been dragging on for well nigh 20 years, I guess they can only shrug their shoulders and say hard luck.

There were some pretty old wooden ones somewhere near the western side of the parade ground, torn down now I think, but I always wonder how many beer cans came down out of the roof when they demolished them - open manhole in the common room made a handy disposal chute...

Do they have a soft-drink & water / snack vending machine? You can get those for free from the vendors. I'm surprised that they don't have one as they are zero cost. Tea & Coffee is a bit different because it needs to be stocked with milk etc.

I wish YPCK could be opened up to GA. Melbourne would then have Three decent GA airports and with luck we could set up a decent warbirds/vintage maintenance cluster in association with the museum.

There is, you've just got to know where to look (Ground floor of RMIT Flight Training)

Hear hear! Oh, and it's YMPC.

I totally agree.
I flew in there with friends and family to checkout the Museum a while ago and I was very surprised and disappointed that we could not get any drinks or snacks at the place!! They offered me a glass of water from the tap!!

Disgraceful, it's touted as a tourist spot......

Come on RAAF you can do better.

I recall that there was an endless supply of tinned orange juice and tinned grapefruit juice in the crew rooms. It tasted like 5h1t and was also used as paint thinner and battery acid, and accumulated in the fridge and in cartons on the floor.

But in the last 40 years it must have eaten its way through the cans and the bottom of the fridge and the floor. You are much better off sticking to water.

I doubt it. Not much spare cash around these days

It isn't?
Join the Point Cook Flying Club and fly in whenever you want.

Haven't flown there for years since RMIT leaned on the airfield managers to ensure they have priority over all others from EN/MB etc wanting to train there. Best of luck to the Point Cook Flying Club but is it true the club is restricted to flying only when RMIT is not flying that day?

There was a significant ($200M or so from memory) project planned to upgrade RAAF Williams with a particular emphasis on maintaining heritage. I believe it got cut from the list in the mad dash for a surplus.

No, they share the circuit all the time.

Things aren't easy for the Aero Club though, with parking no longer available on the southern side of the field it's a looooong way from the brief to the aircraft.