On March 19, the Nhill Aerodrome will host its inaugural Heritage Engineering Expo, bringing together old farming machinery, vintage cars and bikes, and historical aircraft from the Aviation Heritage Centre.

The event will mark the unveiling of a plaque granted to the aerodrome by Heritage Engineering Victoria recognising the historical engineering effort which took place at the aerodrome during the early 20th century.

Nhill Aviation Society president Rob Lynch said there will be an array of historical machines and vehicles on display at the event.

"We have got a beautiful 1908 car coming that has a very interesting story. It was bought by a family who lives just south as Horsham, now it is owned by a Nhill man living in Ballarat.

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"We are going to have a display of sewing machines and mix masters coming up.

"There are lots of bits and pieces that people will bring. There is a man coming with a wood lathe, and he will be making wooden tops for kids."

Beyond woodturning, blacksmithing and other arts of a bygone age, the exhibition will also host a paper airplane competition in the aerodrome's main hangar and a Lego building competition for children.

The event will also see the unveiling of the restored aeradio building, which housed communication equipment at the former airbase in the 1930s.

Mr Lynch said the aeroradio building was home to state-of-the-art technology for its time, a testament to the technological and engineering feats achieved at the aerodrome in the past.

"We are getting this award because of the engineering effort that happened here," he said.

"The whole infrastructure here was built on 10 weeks - five hangars, enough accommodation for 1000 people, a hospital, a dentist, a chapel, a post office and sleeping quarters.

"Nowadays you couldn't even knock on the door to get the permit in 10 weeks."

Mr Lynch said the Nhill RAAF air base was, at a time, a "world unto its own", with the volume of airmen passing through the base for the war effort.

"There were about 1000 people here at any one time, but over the five years about 10,000 went through here.

"There were courses on just about everything. Not only navigation and radio operation - there were courses on airframe and engine maintenance.

"When the war started we needed not only pilots and navigators but people to support them. I don't think people realise the vastness of the courses on offer here."

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Much of the heritage farming equipment at the event will be sourced from Nhill. Like the airforce base, in days past the town itself had a thriving manufacturing industry.

"We have a stripper that was built probably pre 1900. It is an old piece of equipment but 120 years ago that was cutting edge technology in the agricultural industry. We preserved that at the Nhill Vintage Club," he said.

"The beauty about that particular machine is that it was made up in Nhill, when machinery was made in your local town.

"We decided to get a few of the engineering feats of local manufacturers, and there will be some engineering items that local people have made."

Tickets to the Nhill Heritage Engineering Expo will be $15. For those needing transport, a free bus service will leave the Nhill Information Centre at 10am and 1.30pm, returning to Nhill at 1.30pm and 4pm.

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