(plane engine roaring)
(gentle music)
- Guys, welcome to Mojave.
Today we're going to give the Quanta 747 a grand farewell
at its rest place.
This airplane's incredible history,
five decades of service serving Australia
and connecting Australia to the world.
Well beloved.
Before we go inside and check out with the captain,
I want to share with you some of the great footage
our contributor, and our friends in Australia,
being on the farewell flights,
and also a spectacular city 747 fly over the harbour,
and even they drew a kangaroo.
So let's take a look at what Australia did
to send off the farewell to the beloved 747.
(dramatic music)
- [Radio Voice] 7474, I'd like to take this opportunity,
on behalf of all here at Sydney Air Traffic Control,
and indeed all air traffic controllers around the country,
to say that it's been our pleasure to guide you
through the sky safely, inside the Queen of the Skies,
through our airspace, over the last decades.
And on this bittersweet day, as we all suffer through
this COVID crisis, on behalf of Australian people
all over the country, many of whom have flown with you,
it has been an uplifting experience
to once again see Qantas raising the spirit of Australia
with the flying kangaroo.
Godspeed.
(plane engine roaring)
(air whooshing)
(dramatic music)
Many of you love the 747, just like me, it's magic.
We grew up with this plane, with so much affection
towards this plane.
So let's go inside, take a look of the 747
for the last time.
(dramatic music)
There's nothing like boarding onto a 747,
turning left as well.
And this is the A zone, which is the nose,
the unique oval shape of the 747 that many of us love it.
Sitting here, you're sitting even forward
than the captain on the upper deck in the cockpit.
Look at all the signatures,
people signing inside everywhere, farewelling this plane.
Thanks for the memories, goodbye Queen of the Sky.
Then this one here, farewell to the Queen.
You will always be the Queen, and goodbye Queen,
thank you for all the memories I've learned working on it.
48 years, wow.
These stairs, here, for many, actually,
this is the 747 stairs to the heaven.
Let's go upstairs.
You can see people been signing inside
even the galley doors.
Thank you, Queen of the Skies.
Qantas 747, 17 July, Frank.
I have to say, still, the cabin looks very immaculate.
It just like ready for the next flight,
don't you agree with me?
It's beautiful, clean, and still look very modern.
I think it's still ahead of its time, honestly.
The huge cockpit of a 747.
Again, a lot of memories that inspired my aviation, man.
I think a lot of my love for aviation is really shaped
from the Qantas 747, especially in the cockpit, here.
I still remember that day, when I was 13 years old in 1994,
I flew Sydney to Melbourne.
A flight attendant took me into the cockpit,
into the jump seat, and I sat behind the captain
on the takeoff from Sydney to Melbourne.
And, at that time, the captain was so nice.
He said, Sam, put your hands on the throttle,
just like this.
And then my hand was on the throttle,
and he put his hand on top of mine.
And then we pushed that throttle on the takeoff
on runway 1-6, right, departing Sydney.
Can you believe that?
Those little, little memories really shape up the love
of my aviation, and Qantas 747
has played a great part of that.
And now, as many of you know, I just done my solo flights.
And, one day, I dream about holding this yoke,
and I'm trying to take off now, see that?
Oh, this is very interesting.
Never believed there's this much legroom
in the economy class, right?
I asked the engineer, what's going on?
He actually told me that lots of seats
are being removed here.
They're being retained,
because these seats are well maintained.
And then Qantas want to reuse the seats
to train for the future crews.
You see how wide a 747 is when everything is taken away?
Massive, giant aeroplane, loving it.
You see some differences on the 400ER
compared to the conventional 747-400.
It's because Boeing put their signature bins.
So the bins are similar to a 777, 787,
with the curve that gives actually travellers more headroom.
So this has actually made the 747 look very modern.
The tour does not end.
At the very end of the tail, that's the crew rest, right?
The crew need to be rest on a long-haul flight.
So there's a mini upper deck on the tail of the 747
for the crew rest.
There's eight bunks here, all fully flat beds.
I wish we can take off and leave now.
(dramatic music)
We're just out here at Mojave,
waiting for the last Qantas landing, and he just took off.
The last 747, the Qantas, just took off.
Los Angeles, flight number QF 7474.
Right now, just took off, passing 2,300 feet.
For a 747 to here, maybe 12,000 feet.
It's going to be less than 25 minutes.
How cool it is, LA to Mojave, less than a hundred miles,
flown by a 747.
(dramatic music)
(plane engine roaring)
(dramatic music)
(plane engine roaring)
(dramatic music)
Well, this is the moment we've been waiting for,
getting on board the 747 and going to meet up with the crew.
So exciting, walking up the stairs, man.
I'm so privileged to join the flight deck today.
We have the 747 fleet manager, captain Owen Weaver,
and second officer, senior second officer, Owen Zupp.
How do you feel?
You must be super proud of being the last captain
to bring the 747 to here.
- This whole team, we've definitely got plenty of captains
on this flight, and everyone, the whole crew, is super proud
to be a part of it.
Actually, we feel quite sad that we've got lots of comrades,
as well, that couldn't be here,
and we'd love everyone to have had a chance
to say they ascended.
Yeah, it is very emotional.
We can fly across the Pacific or the Atlantic oceans.
We can go into big airports.
We can go into small airports.
We did charters all around the world.
We did rescue flights into all sorts of different places.
Cairo, Bali, and these aircraft can do it.
- [Sam] And recently Wuhan as well.
- Wuhan, we went to Wuhan as well, earlier this year.
So, everyone has that association with it,
because we can be there.
They see the big red tail, and it is a big red tail,
and it's fantastic,
A lot of the aircraft we have are enjoyable to fly,
but the 747 just responds very predictably,
and it's lovely to land, it's lovely to fly.
It flies through turbulence nicely.
It responds back to you very clearly, and easy to recognise
what it's telling you.
It's a pleasure, absolute pleasure.
- It's a really significant aircraft for Qantas,
but aviation in general.
The fact that it can carry telescopes for NASA
or piggyback the space shuttle.
It's just such a versatile aircraft.
And there's probably only a handful of aircraft
over the decades that have got that much of a reputation.
And they won't last that long
unless they're really sound aircraft.
And it's done that, it's done all these things
with very good dispatch reliability.
It's an iconic aircraft, but you'll hear that a lot,
I guess, for now.
Particularly special, about that, on a day like today,
but as far as feeling about how I do about 747,
I think, for all of us, it'll be more of a reflection
once we have finished and at the end of today,
because one thing about being pilots, too,
we're pretty task-focused.
And everyone was very focused on, from Sydney,
through the kangaroo, through the fly over,
through the arrival to Mojave, to do the job right.
And I think it's only now that the emotive part
will start to kick in, but yeah, a very special aeroplane,
and a very special piece of history to be a part of.
- Just want to say that, brilliant, that kangaroo drawing,
whose idea was that?
- Nope.
- (laughing) It's your idea.
- There was a whole team that went into doing it.
Our navigation department were instrumental
in building up the route that we had to fly.
We had a lot of assistance as well by air services
in Australia, the Air Force were fantastic.
They gave us a restricted area
that we could completely operate in.
- [Sam] Wow.
- [Owen] It was a real team effort.
- You kept us all in secret, because,
everyone was monitoring flight radar
once the plane departed the mainland Australia
heading towards the ocean, and we felt,
that's it, goodbye, we're going to turn off and go home.
But then the plane flew back.
It flew back towards Australia, and started drawing.
And then, in the late time,
we found out that was the shape of a kangaroo!
You're retiring?
- That's why the two of us are in the front seats.
- Yeah, okay.
- Yeah, sad, eh.
- How many years, Captain?
- 34 years in Qantas, 20 on the jumbo.
- That's amazing.
I remember, Qantas was, at one time, all 747 airline.
There was no other planes.
They retired 707 before the 767 came.
- [Owen] Look, this is our little mascot flags.
- Look at this.
Oh, the roo is also wearing a mask!
That's VH-OEJ.
- [Owen] Okay, ladies and gents,
if you can see this phone, then you're in the picture.
Okay, ready, one, two, three.
(camera shutter clicking)
- This is probably my last time walking down
of Qantas Boeing 747, with a very heavy heart.
(relaxing music)
- My very first 747 was when I went to London,
as young Australians do, and that was 1975.
And it was such a thrill to get on a jumbo like this.
And interestingly, my girlfriend, she flew from Melbourne.
In those days, it went Melbourne, Sydney, Sydney, Singapore,
Singapore, Bahrain, I think, Bahrain, London.
But she was frightened, because when I got on the plane,
she wasn't real sure if I was going to join her,
but she was already on the plane from Melbourne.
So she was getting a bit worried
when she saw more and more people come through.
Then, eventually, I appeared, so, it all worked out well.
But another time I've been on the 747, very early on,
as a reporter, before that, we would go upstairs,
and it was a bar.
There was a bar up there.
You could go up there and have a cocktail
in the top section, there.
Not seats, not anything like in rows of seats, or movies,
you'd sit up there and just have a drink.
- That's right. - How good was that?
- [Sam] The Captain Cook lounge.
- [Robert] The Captain Cook lounge, you're absolutely right.
- Fantastic memories, Robert.
An aeroplane like this, with 400 people inside,
400 stories, 400, endless families connected too.
And just the humanities, the fun, the connecting
between the people, I love that.
And somehow, when the plane retire,
I also associate that with me.
It feels like a friend is gone, or something like that.
It is no doubt a very sad moment.
I know you are all smiling behind.
Yes, cheers to the last Qantas 747,
and cheers to Qantas and all your service company.
Thank you so much flying us.
- Waving. - Smile and wave.
(relaxing music)
- This is my joining shot,
and Captain Carmichael stood beside us,
and he threatened to leave us in the engine. (laughs)
This one says farewell our 747.
We will miss you, Captain Sharelle, which is me,
and Paul Russell, rest in peace.
Paul was a 747 captain, and he passed away over a year ago.
Beautiful person, wonderful family,
and they're so excited to see his name.
And here's my one, one more time with feeling.
- [Sam] Nice line.
- Qantas 7474.
And then my wife has also written up here,
and for her father, Barrie Brown.
He was on the 747 from 1971 to '89,
and my wife also on it, clearly, 1996 to 2020.
My father's Quantas wings from the 1950s.
He flew the super constellation.
- [Sam] Wow.
- All those years ago.
So they were on my first trip in Quantas
and I decided to bring them with on this final trip
of the Qantas 747.
- So, Owen, your family is generations of pilots, actually.
- Yes, my wife is also a Quantas 747 pilot.
Her father was a 747 pilot,
and my father flew the super constellation for Qantas.
(dramatic music)
Look at this one, how cool.
Somebody painted a really cool kangaroo on the Quantic 747.
How cool is that?
(dramatic music)
Thank you, Qantas 747.
Five decades of service.
You will be remembered, in, not just me, many, many, many,
and many future generations, people's hearts.
Onwards and upwards.
(dramatic music)
(air whooshing)
(bell dings)
(bubble pops)