Inside Whanganui Airport's control tower

The person behind the console at Whanganui Airport's control tower had a view across the runway and out to sea. Photo / Lewis Gardner

It's the view that most impresses the visitors who climb the many stairs to the top of Whanganui Airport's control tower, Lynn Annear says.

A former air traffic controller herself - 50 years ago in England, Singapore and Wellington - she's on duty on Sundays to talk to visitors.

Air traffic control work was hard and stressful, she remembers - but exciting.

The cab at the top of the tower is the only part now open to the public, and it can only hold 12 people at once. The tower's other two floors, and balcony, are closed to the public.

Whanganui Airport Control Tower Restoration Group has raised nearly $500,000 from grants and donations. It has fixed the tower's roof and exterior and restored the control console in the cab.

Volunteers Lynn Annear and James Crawley are ready to receive visitors at 1pm. Photo / Lewis Gardner

The tower is open on Sundays from 1pm-3pm. Sometimes not many come, Annear said, but it was busy on Anzac Day morning when people watched a flypast put on by the Biggin Hill Historic Aircraft Centre at RNZAF Ohakea. On the Sunday afternoons visitors can watch the arrival of an Air Chathams flight from Auckland.

Visitors are often surprised there's no one watching over the safety of arrivals at the airport. The tower was decommissioned in 1989. Since then aircraft that come within 3km are told to turn on their lights and that they can join the airfield, but will be in control of their own safety.

The console in the tower's cab looks like something out of the 1960s - and it probably is. The tower was commissioned in 1961. In those days there would have been a senior air traffic controller and about four others inside, working shifts.

Now, Annear said, everything the large console can provide is visible on a single computer screen.

The tower was designed by architect Gordon Smith, and became a prototype for others. It's a heritage building, and fellow restoration group volunteer Roger Kealey likes it a lot.

"That's what attracted me. I have always loved the design of the building," he said.

The tower would have been demolished in 2004, if aviation enthusiast Owen Cantillon-Rice hadn't started a group to restore it.

The interiors of the tower's lower two storeys still need renovation. Photo / Lewis Gardner

The group wants another $500,000 to restore the rest of the building, and turn it into a museum and aviation centre.

It's having a second - and better organised - Run the Runway Mile fundraising event in September, Annear said, and its annual general meeting is on July 18.