Celebrities and top-secret missions: Stories from the Qantas Founders Museum

I stretched out in my business class seat, relishing the extra room in every direction. There’s so much space here. How will I ever travel in economy again?

I’m seated at the nose of the plane, a surprisingly spacious area that was once first class until the airline realised it didn’t make enough money from it. There’s a cupboard at the front, providing a place for passengers to hang their coats, and no aisle as such, just an open area where there’s no risk of anyone elbowing you in the head on their way to the restroom.

This is my first taste of business class, but unfortunately it’s short-lived.

I’ve barely finished imagining the meal choices when Trent, my tour guide, moves us outside.

Having endured 15 flights this year already – several of them long haul – I’m comfortable in a plane. But a 90-minute “behind-the-scenes” tour of a 747 was a new experience.

The tour is offered at the Qantas Founders Musuem in Longreach in central outback Queensland. If it seems an unexpected location for a museum about Australia’s iconic airline, you’re right. It should probably be 177km west at the small town of Winton, where Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited was founded in 1920.

Of the millions of passengers Qantas carries around the world, few would know the airline’s beginnings. Until recently, I was similarly clueless of its outback origins.

The history spans nearly a century, from the dream of two World War I pilots to start their own airline, delivering mail through western Queensland, building aircraft at Longreach, making the first Flying Doctors Flight in 1928, flying internationally from 1935 and slowly creating its identity as Australia’s national airline.

The museum is easily identified by the enormous 747 jet looking comically out of place in the country landscape with tiny fixed-wing planes parked at the airport over the fence.

Qantas donated the Boeing 747-238B to the museum in 2002 when the aircraft was retired after 23 years of service. By then it had flown 82.54 million kilometres, either domestically between Sydney and Perth, or internationally between Sydney and San Francisco.

Getting the aircraft to its new home was a triumph of sorts, given the runway at Longreach is 1.9km and 30m wide and this plane, which is 60m wide, typically requires a strip of 3-4km.

“Qantas contacted its pilots asking for someone crazy enough to fly the aircraft to Longreach,” Trent said.

More than 100 pilots put their hand up for the job and five, who Trent described as “the best of the best”, where chosen for the team, with Captain Mike Weston as pilot. The plane left Sydney with enough fuel for two landing attempts and a diversion to Townsville if it couldn’t land. But it landed on the first attempt, using just two-thirds of the runway. “They then spent the next 45 minutes doing a 19-point turn,” Trent said.

Before taking us inside, Trent gave a detailed tour of the plane from the ground, talking us through the engines and radio and transmitting features. The explanations of the radar equipment roused questions about the MH17 flight. “They can be turned off,” Trent said. “It’s one of those topics that makes everybody uneasy about flying.”

Onboard, the jet is empty. When the lights are off and the people gone, it’s an eerie place to be. I’ve been on planes this size before, but without all the passengers or a flight attendant buzzing around, it’s just strange.

Trent leads us to business class, which looks impressive even though the plane has been stripped of a lot of features.

Behind us a narrow spiral staircase leads to the upper deck Trent asks us what we think is up there.

First class?

A lounge?

A bar?

All of are disappointed when we climb up to discover more economy seating. Business class used to be up here before first class was cut.

The cockpit off limits – after all, this plane isn’t just for show. It’s still in working order and could fly out of Longreach if it needed to.

Back down in my comfy business class seat, Trent gives us the goss on the other planes outside, which includes a Boeing 707-138B once chartered by Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5.

The 707-138 was the airline’s first jet, commissioned for long-haul routes to the United States and London. Only 13 were built. The first sits next to the 747 I’ve just walked through. The last, and the only one still in service, is owned and flown by John Travolta.

The 707 on show at the museum was flown by Qantas from 1959 to 1967. In 1978 it was converted into a private plane, which in 1984 was owned by an American company when it was chartered by the Jackson 5 for The Victory Tour. Trent said that Michael Jackson had wanted to buy the plane, but for some reason or another, he couldn’t.

In 1987 the plane was bought by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and used by the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. In 1999 it went into storage in the UK until it sold to the Qantas Foundation Memorial in 2006 and brought to Longeach.

The amount of history packed into one jet astounded me.

The other plane parked near us, a silver Catalina, has an equally impressive story.

During World War II, flights between Australia and Britain had to stop when the Japanese took Singapore in 1942. To continue its mail service, Qantas got five Catalina aircraft capable of flying a new route from Perth to Sri Lanka, which became the world’s longest regular non-stop service. The top-secret journey took between 28 and 32 hours and became known as the “Double Sunrise Service”. It carried government and military passengers and mail, which was often transferred to microfilm to make it lighter to carry.

The Jet Tour is an optional experience at the Museum, but if you’ve got the time (the tour is 90-minutes and you’ll probably need the same amount of time to see the rest of the exhibits) I recommend it. You’ll never look at a plane the same way again.