We spent a whole day at the Qantas Founders Museum.
Qantas stands for Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Service
The museum is located in Longreach because that is where Qantas was started.
The company was started in 1921 to provide faster transport and medical service for stockmen and station owners in the outback areas of Qld and NT.
Without the planes, the distances across the outback were too large and the conditions were too harsh for the cars of the time, particularly during the wet season or if it was flooded.
A couple of years later, Qantas won the contract to deliver the mail from Charleville to Cloncurry (1042km by road). This made the mail service much faster.
Qantas built their own planes or adapted others to suit the outback conditions. They had special safety rules like "if you're not sure it's going to fly, don't leave the ground".
Today, Qantas still has one of the best safety records of all airlines.
Qantas used the hangar below to build and store their aircraft. The first 6 aircraft ever built in Australia were built here between 1926 and 1930.
The museum was fantastic. It had lots of old planes.
On this one you could use a joystick and buttons to control the wing flaps and rudder.
These are some of the toys that they had on passenger planes before there were in-flight movies and games.
There were plane chairs to sit in to watch movies
And a pretend old cockpit for the kids to play in
This is an engine Boeing 707. Qantas were the first airline to use this engine.
This is a Rolls Royce engine from a Boeing 747 and other big planes. Qantas were the first plane company to use Rolls Royce engines because they were more fuel efficient than the other common engines of the time.
This is a DC3.
Not the most reliable plane, as it has become famous for dropping out of the sky! Not what most passengers are looking for!
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| Inside the DC3 |
Some information on the planes
We went inside the original Qantas hangar.
This was one of the first planes to have a closed cabin, but the pilot still sits on the outside.
This is a replica DH61 Giant Moth. This plane was delivered in 1929 when Qantas needed bigger aircraft. This plane could carry seven passengers. The pilot is still seated outside, but this is a much more modern plane and even had a toilet.
There was lots of old advertising posters
1930-1940 1940-1950
1980-1990
There were also iPads which had old TV commercials on them. They were really funny.
Kian and Zeke tried on some old pilot hats. These hats were needed as it was cold being the pilot and sitting outside the cabin.
Longreach airport is still used as a airport today. We saw this little plane taking off.
Boeing 747 Tour
We did a tour of a Boeing747-200.
This plane has more than 6,000,000 parts and more than 1/4 are rivets (that's 1.5 million rivets!).
The plane was given to the museum by Qantas in 2002.
It was flown into Longreach with minimal crew and minimal weight so that they could land it on Longreach's tiny runway. 747's normally need a runway at least twice as long and wide to land safely.
During landing of this plane they needed to switch the outer engines off so they didn't suck up the dirt as they overhang the width of the runway.
Even though they managed to land this plane in Longreach, there is no way for a 747 to take off on a runway this small. The plane is now here as a stationary exhibit.
The nose of the plane is the weather radar.
We stood inside the engine.
This is the black box - there are actually always 2 of them and they are always orange, not black!
<Dad>
the kids get to sit in a 747. they don't get this chance often!
<Rémi>
This is Kian in the pilot's resting area.
The cockpit
Mum says these are the beds that I used to travel in to and from France.
We also looked inside a Boeing 707 which had been converted to a luxury aircraft in the past.
Kian thought that he could get used to this space!
This bedroom is bigger than our caravan.
and the ensuite bathroom
The cockpit
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