A Chinook helicopter is to be one of the stars of the show when the expanded Australian War Memorial is complete.
It's currently in the memorial's store in Canberra but it will be moved to the bigger halls of the revamped museum section of the memorial.
The original Chinook was designed and manufactured by the Boeing company. From its first production in 1962, it became the workhorse of the US military in Vietnam.
The war memorial's version, however, was used in Afghanistan by the 5th Aviation Regiment of the Australian Army from 2000 until its retirement on April 19, 2016, when it was flown to Canberra.
It could carry 44 soldiers as well as move heavy machinery as a sort of flying crane. It could carry big artillery guns weighing up to 12 tonnes slung under its fuselage.
The war memorial's newly appointed chairman, the former Labor leader Kim Beazley, said the helicopter was "an essential asset to the international community's efforts to create security in Afghanistan".
The memorial's CH-47D Chinook A15-202 (to give it its formal title) is known as "Centaur" and also, less formally as "Good as Gold" - the nickname is emblazoned on its fuselage along with a 1940s-style pin-up woman.
On either side of the drab olive helicopter is also painted a black, forward-facing kangaroo above the word "ARMY".
One of the rotor blades shows signs of the repairs done after hailstones punched through it at Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan in 2013.
The fuselage was pierced by bullets in 2009, and those repairs are also evident.
The memorial's $550 million expansion has been highly controversial, particularly the demolition of the old award-winning ANZAC Hall.
The people who ran the memorial argued that the expansion would give it the room to show the biggest items of military hardware which are currently stored away at its Treloar Technology Centre.
The RAAF Douglas Dakota which was used to transport the body of Prime Minister John Curtin from Canberra to Perth for his funeral is also there.
The unseen collection also includes smaller items such as art, uniforms, flags and military equipment. This collection spans centuries, and includes artillery guns from the mid-1870s.
We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.
