QANTAS Founders Museum - Airpark Tour - QANTAS 747

After an amazing day on Monday going through the QANTAS Founders museum, participating in the celebrations for QANTAS' 100th birthday and then going back that night for the Luminescent Longreach night show display, yesterday we headed back to the museum for day two of our two day experience. Luminescent Longreach gives you an unforgettable narrative through time, a story of the daring spirit of early aviation, of iconic aircraft, wars, distant places and outback all displayed on the side of the 747 Jumbo jet and other aircraft in the park. I really cant stress this enough... this is a MUST SEE, it really gives you goosebumps and blows your mind. We were also told they are in the process of making number two. I was really excited heading back yesterday as we were doing the Airpark Tour and we got to walk up close, under and inside the aircraft park there in the airpark. The tour took us behind the scenes of their DC-3, Boeing 747, Boeing 707 and Super Constellation. Hayden, our tour guide, had a wealth of knowledge and shared incredible information about these aircraft. 

Facts about VH-EBQ 

Boeing 747-238B. 

C/N 22145 - 410.
This aircraft was ordered new by Qantas Airways Ltd in February 1979.
It rolled off the production line at Everett on the 9th September 1979.
It is Powered by 4 Rolls-Royce RB211-524B2 engines.
It first flew as VH-EBQ on the 28th November 1979.
It was the 19th Boeing 747 delivered to Qantas.
The aircraft was named 'City of Bunbury'.
Entered onto the Australian Aircraft Register on the 11th December 1979.
Ferried Everett (Paine Field) - San Francisco as QF501D on the 11th December.
It operated its first revenue service from San Francisco to Sydney as QF4 on the 11th December. 
It arrived in Sydney (Kingsford Smith) on the 13th December.
The engines were later retrofitted to Rolls-Royce RB211-524D4 on the 16th May 1982.
It was repainted into new Qantas livery at Sydney after maintenance - December 1985.
It was leased to Air Pacific in the Qantas livery with Air Pacific decals on the 29th November 1997 to the 8th December 1997.
It operated its final Qantas service and withdrawn from use at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) on the 27th July 1998.
It was cancelled from the Australian Aircraft Register on the 4th December 1998.
Entered onto the Fijian Aircraft Register as DQ-FJI the same day.
It returned to Qantas Airways on the 7th August 2000.
EBQ operated its final Qantas revenue service Perth - Sydney as QF566 on the 9th November 2002.
It flew from Sydney - Longreach on the 11th November 2002.
It was donated to the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, Longreach on the 16th November 2002 which was a gift for QANTAS' 82nd birthday.
Aircraft had flown 92,125 hours with 18,020 cycles (a cycle is one take off and landing)

When this aircraft arrived at Longreach it has a total scrap metal value of $6.5 Million.

Information sourced from Wikipedia, QANTAS Founders Museum and aussieairliners.org