Whenuapai is a suburb and aerodrome located in northwestern Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand.

It is located on the shore of the Upper Waitematā Harbour, 15 kilometres to the northwest of Auckland's city centre.

[4] When Wake settled in the area in 1911, he chose the name Waimarie, meaning "calm waters".

[11] In 1938 under the Public Works Act, the New Zealand Government several hundred acres of land at Whenuapai, in order to create a base for Wellington bomber, prior to the onset of World War II.

[12][3] Post World War II Auckland became a centre for RNZAF transport and maritime squadrons.

[12] That "temporary basis" lasted twenty years and the RNZAF had to give up their two smaller hangars and move to the north apron of their own airfield.

[12] For a short time, Auckland had three aerodromes—the seaplane aerodrome at Mechanics Bay where Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL) operated from 1940–54; the city's domestic airport—at the then small grass airstrip at Māngere, on the site of the present Auckland Airport; and weekly Pan American and British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (the latter's services originally operated by Australian National Airways) services with DC-4s from Whenuapai.

[12] In 1947 the government closed Māngere to all but light aircraft citing safety concerns, and NAC moved to Whenuapai.

(At the same time, the government closed Wellington's Rongotai Airport, for the same reasons, and NAC had to move to Paraparaumu, 35 miles from the city.)

It kept one Solent in reserve and sent the other to Suva to fly the leg to Tahiti, which didn't get a landplane airport until 1960.

The operational tempo at Whenuapai continues at the level it has been at for the last forty years, although the closure of the adjacent Hobsonville base has seen the departure of rotary operations (primarily the UH1H Iroquois) to RNZAF Base Ohakea.

[14] However, in the local body elections of October 2007, the pro-airport North Shore City mayor was defeated by an anti-airport mayoral candidate with indications that the airport issue was the most important of factors considered by voters.

[18] Whenupai is one of four places in New Zealand where weather balloons are regularly launched for MetService.