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Happy 100th Birthday Qantas


John Heaton

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Yesterday Qantas - the famous Australian airline - was the 100th anniversary the birth of the name

and airline

 

Originally - Queensland and Northern Territory Airways - formed by 2 ex Australian WW1 flyers -

was a Bush airline carrying a few passengers and  Mail from Charleville  to Normanton - via Longreach 

and Winton - and Mt Isa

 

The headquarters were in Longreach - and now there is a wonderful museum at the old Hangar

and I am pleased to say I was part of that story along with another of our oldies - Macca

 

2 Pics - the Captain Cook Lounge upstairs on the early 747s -(spent many a happy flight in there)

and me - taking off from Cairns - in the freeware 787 Dreamliner - the latest in the fleet

 

Qantas have done a mockup of the lounge for the birthday party and it will be part of the Longreach exhibit 

Captain Cook Lounge.jpg

Cairns 3 TO.jpg

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12 hours ago, wolfko said:

Thank you for posting this John. Plesae just allow me a minor correction. QANTAS was founded as "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services".

 

whhoops  - correction accepted - especially as I for one - knew it all the time

 

I'll blame it on old age - ( 15 years behind Qantas) - and I wrote it at 1 am :ph34r: 

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23 hours ago, John Heaton said:

Yesterday Qantas - the famous Australian airline - was the 100th anniversary the birth of the name

and airline

 

Originally - Queensland and Northern Territory Airways - formed by 2 ex Australian WW1 flyers -

was a Bush airline carrying a few passengers and  Mail from Charleville  to Normanton - via Longreach 

and Winton - and Mt Isa

 

The headquarters were in Longreach - and now there is a wonderful museum at the old Hangar

and I am pleased to say I was part of that story along with another of our oldies - Macca

 

2 Pics - the Captain Cook Lounge upstairs on the early 747s -(spent many a happy flight in there)

and me - taking off from Cairns - in the freeware 787 Dreamliner - the latest in the fleet

 

Qantas have done a mockup of the lounge for the birthday party and it will be part of the Longreach exhibit 

Captain Cook Lounge.jpg

Cairns 3 TO.jpg

You should be asleep by 1am John says I at 1am. My alarm is set for 6am. Hopefully 5 hrs sleep with this Shiraz. Regards also to Macca :)

 

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9 hours ago, Captain Lars said:

This must be the best lounge ever.

To My Way of travel --it was the best - unfortunately replaced in the late 702 by a business class section

and 1st class was fitted with less seats and Premiere class seats - they folded down - almost a bed like leather -armchair

 

The other major Airlines had variations of that lounge - with British Airways the second best similar to Qantas

Pan American utilized it - set up as a domestic Dining room - where all meals were "silver" served - as in a restaurant

 

I never flew T.W.A. 747 -  mainly because the routes I flew on business were well served by the other 3 - eg. US

West coast to UK. - but I did a couple of times in the 707 internal USA and the bar was at the back of the F.C.Cabin

 

A small anecdote on this upper deck lounge - on a flight on B.A London to Hong Kong - there was only me and another bloke

in First class - and we were both in the lounge  - when the skipper came out and asked our permission to allow 7 economy 

passengers to fly in the FC cabin - because that would allow him to shut down all systems in the back end.

 

We then learned that this was the first BA flight for some due due to a pilots strike and although scheduled -was a repositioning

aircraft flight to Hong Kong - on to USA - and we 9 - plus 2 full 747 crews - were the only pax 

 

I'll never forget the faces of the ground crew in Bombay when we landed for a refueling stop - and there was a line of the usual

buses all lined up -  because no one had informed the Airport staff

 

BTW - no Moving loading gates etc in those days 

 

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