'MasterChef Australia' contestants revealed

The top 50 contestants for the latest series of MasterChef Australia have been announced.

According to The Age, this year's members of the public battling it out to become the country's top amateur chef include a fighter pilot, an orchestra musician, a lifeguard and a contestant returning from the first series of the show.

At the programme's headquarters in Sydney, guests were also told that the third season will feature guest appearances from celebrity chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Rick Stein, Nigella Lawson, Adriano Zumbo and Maggie Beer.

In this series, challenges will include contestants travelling to the Sunrise Dam mine in the Outback, cooking in Margaret River's vineyards and creating dishes from a tonne of mystery ingredients mystery box arriving on Cockatoo Island by helicopter.

MasterChef premieres on Network Ten on Sunday, May 1. It was previously reported that the debut episode will go head-to-head with live coverage of the Logie Awards on a rival channel.

One of the show's judges, Melbourne chef George Calombaris, recently revealed that this year's series will be a "big deal".