Qantas' first-ever Boeing 747-400 will makes its final flight on Sunday March 8, landing in its new home at Wollongong's Illawarra Regional Airport to become a permanent attraction at the Historical Aviation Restoration Society.
It was this jumbo – named City of Canberra, with the registration VH-OJA (CN 24354)– which opened up the one-stop Kangaroo Route between Australia and London with Singapore as the sole stop-over.
VH-OJA in fact made a promotional non-stop flight from London to Sydney in 1989 – albeit with very few passengers and cargo – to highlight the jumbo's long-range capabilities, speeding through the 18,000 kilometre (11,190 mile) journey in just over 20 hours.
Fittingly for its final journey, one of the flight deck crew on March 8 will be Captain David Massy-Greene, the now-retired Qantas captain who operated the historic flight from London to Sydney.
Qantas says a GoPro video camera will be fitted to the cockpit to record to the jumbo's take-off from Sydney Airport as well as its landing at Illawarra Regional Airport, to provide footage which will later be shared on the airline's YouTube channel.
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