About Us

HAFU

We believe you only get one chance to film history as it happens, so over twenty years ago we set out on an incredible journey that has seen us photograph and film many amazing events, many awesome aircraft & vehicles, and many of the characters who own and operate them (plus other cool stuff too). Some of these people and vehicles no longer exist, so in that regard our footage is historically significant.

Our goals are to:

1. Discover, record and preserve the audio-visual history of these machines, people and events while we can, because you never know what's going to happen to them next year, next month or even next week, and

2. Publish the high quality footage we capture for the enjoyment of other enthusiasts just like you (and us), worldwide.


Some video is more suited to publishing on YouTube and we put quite a bit of this type of material on our Freeview channel for everyone to enjoy. If you watch any of our free-to-view videos, please hit the 'Like' button and subscribe to the channel (it's free) so you get notifications when new clips are released

However, we also have a significant amount of exclusive archive footage and long form documentary material on our own video-on-demand streaming platform -- Historical Machines TV.

Much of this material comprises older productions original released on VHS tape and/or DVD and which we've been able to license and preserve on HMTV -- you can access this for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month, and you'll get to enjoy an ever-expanding catalog which includes video from our own archive, and other historical film and video footage from other production houses. You'll be able to rest assured that you are doing you bit to support us in our preservation goals.

We're Hiring ...

Well, not hiring as such as HAFU is still essentially a voluntary effort, but we are looking for people who would be interested in working with us (so we can spend more time producing and preserving video).


Are you a historian/writer who can put together short articles?


Are you a social media freak who could help us with our media platforms?


Are you a marketing whizz who could help us increase our reach and user base?

The HAFU Team

  • Allan Udy

    Videographer, Editor    

    Allan specialises in moving images, and the written word. Having developed a passion for video editing in 2001, he's been filming aircraft and motor vehicles ever since. Allan also crafts much of HAFU's written work, including the design and publishing of HAFU's books, and a number of magazine articles that we've submitted over the years.

    Between writing and video filming/editing assignments, Allan is a professional software engineer who has been writing sophisticated database systems since the late 1980's.

  • Alex Mitchell

    Chief Photographer, Producer   

    Alex is HAFU's photographer, and he's been taking high quality photographs of aircraft and motor vehicles since 1999. In addition to having a life-long interest in military aviation, Alex is also an accredited motorsport photographer and can frequently be found at one race track or another in Australasia (and sometimes further afield).

    Outside of HAFU activities Alex fills his time as a professional photographer, and sometimes still uses his project management skills from a previous professional life to good effect.



    Physical Contact Details

    Historical Aviation Film Unit, PO Box 590, Blenheim 7240, New Zealand

    Phone: +64 21 900 461

Some Of Our Book & Magazine Covers

As well as filming and producing video material, we also take photographs and write -- sometimes our own books and website articles, but at other times we've written and produced material for other media outlets as well...

  • On The Wings
  • On The Wheels
  • COMING 2024
  • CF 2005
  • CF2007
  • On The Wings 1
  • On The Wings 1
  • Wooden Eagles
  • Windsock
  • Pacific Wings
  • Pacific Wings
  • Pacific Wings
  • Over The Front
  • Av News
  • Av News
  • Av News