Then into the tour.
First, the DC3. My first flight was in one of these back in 1960. It has what I think is an interesting AFF overtone and a spooky parallel to this trip.
My younger brother and I had been staying the summer with my grandmother at Norseman, in the WA Goldfields, and it was time to go back to Perth. I was 11, my brother 9., at the time.
MMA serviced Norseman, flying off the Lake Cowan salt lake. As I recall it, the bird had come from PER to KGI and then on to Norseman and continuing to Esperance before going directly back to PER. We get to EPR and there is a bad weather report for PER.
Change of plan. We fly to KGI to overnight. All pax get put up at the famous Palace Hotel (
Palace Hotel, Kalgoorlie - Wikipedia). Somewhere around 0400h the next morning we get roused by the MMA FA
to head back out to KGI and board the bird for the flight to PER.
How MMA got in contact with my parents back in those days about the fate of the two unaccompanied minors, I have no idea.
This aircraft started life as a C-47 Dakota with the RAAF and was handed over to Qantas Empire Airways in 1948 and registered as VH-EAP. It was in service with QF in New Guinea, then sold but continued flying in New Guinea. In 1981 it returned to Australia and was flown by Bush Pilot Airways (later Air Queensland) and some later owners before being retired in 1993, eventually being dismantled and trucked to the museum.
Then it was on to the B747 200. VH-EBQ ‘City of Bunbury’ was delivered in December 1979 and so named because that year marked the 150th Anniversary of WA and because it was delivered near the time Bunbury was designated a city.
It is unique in being the only surviving RR-powered B747 SP or 200 series Jumbo in the world. It landed at LRE on 16 November 2002 – QF’s 82nd birthday. Sad that it was out in the sun from then until last year.
It is set up with the extra pod for transporting a spare engine. I recall my parents back in the 1970s getting stuck in South Africa with an engine failure and having to wait for a spare to be flown in by the next B747 service.
The reverse thrust cowl is open on one engine to show how the system works. Baffles rise up radially to block the bypass air and it streams forward and out through the honeycomb vent. I found seeing the mechanism of that particularly interesting. It was a little hard to photograph inside to see how the baffle plates fold upwards.