Where is the captured Zero flown by New Zealanders preserved?

The aircraft remained hidden on the Kara airstrip for eighteen months, until it was decided to return it to flying condition as a morale-boosting exercise. On the morning of 15 September, the pilot and engineer officer C. D. Kingsford flew to Kara in a Wirraway from No. 5 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. Kofoed then decided to fly the Zero to Piva: two 200-litre fuel drums were obtained and hand-pumped into the tanks, and after further preparation it took off and covered the route northwest in 32 minutes. The flight went off without incident, although the landing gear remained locked in the extended position throughout.

The Zero arrived in New Zealand aboard the second of those transport ships, which left Bougainville on 15 October 1945. For many years it was displayed in the museum with a spurious paint scheme.

In 1995, the Zero and the museum's Spitfire were withdrawn from display and underwent a thorough restoration carried out by Aircraft Component Engineering (ACE), on Auckland's North Shore, ahead of the "Scars on the Heart" exhibition, which opened in 1997. It remains on display there, in a gallery devoted to the wars New Zealanders have taken part in over the last two centuries and their effects. The institution is the Auckland War Memorial Museum, located at The Domain, Auckland, New Zealand.