Today we visited the Qantas Founders Museum and the Stockmans Hall of Fame. We arrived at the Qantas museum right on 9am and didn’t leave until after midday. We did a tour of the two aeroplanes they have there, a 747 and a 707. We saw the black box of the 747 and guess what, the black box is not black, it’s orange. We saw into the cockpit and the working parts of the air conditioning system, the cargo hold and the toilet shute, which does not empty mid air but is emptied on the ground by a truck called the honey pot.
We had our photo taken standing in the intake to the engine. Then it was time to go and have a look at the 707 which was purchased back from the Saudi’s a couple of years ago. The plane was originally Qantas’s first jet and sold many times and converted into a luxury jet in to 70’s, the Saudi’s were the last owners of the jet and they wanted to sell it. It was stored at Southend in England and an engineer who had originally worked on the jet found it there, in desperate need of restoration so it was purchased by the museum from the Saudi’s with a great deal of negotiation taking place to clinch the deal.
Before the jet could be shown to the public a number of conditions were written in the contract of sale, one being that the Saudi owners dining table and writing desk had to be removed from the plane. A Persian carpet had to be removed and all the gold taps had to be removed and finally no-one was to be allowed to take photographs inside the plane. All of these things were agreed to and the sale went ahead.
The plane has wood panelling throughout, seating for only 26 passengers, a large double bed with ensuite including a shower. The toilet looks like a very comfortable leather lounge chair and the crew were looked after with sheepskin covers of the seats in the cockpit.
We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Qantas Museum. Across the road was the Stockmans Hall of Fame which we visited afterwards. We arrived there in time to see the show which showcases the talents of the working sheep dogs and the sheep they are rounding up. The drover doing the commentary was quite a character and an excellent handler of the animals, not to mention his great skills at cracking an 8 foot long whip.
He demonstrated the training of the dogs by telling them when they could bark and when they had to be quiet. He said it is essential that the dogs do not bark if you are droving cattle. The reason being, the barking will spook the cattle and you will have a stampede.
We spent a very interesting hour watching the drover and his animals. We then watched a short movie about the outback and then toured the exhibits of the museum.The two museums took up the majority of the day.
We had our photo taken standing in the intake to the engine. Then it was time to go and have a look at the 707 which was purchased back from the Saudi’s a couple of years ago. The plane was originally Qantas’s first jet and sold many times and converted into a luxury jet in to 70’s, the Saudi’s were the last owners of the jet and they wanted to sell it. It was stored at Southend in England and an engineer who had originally worked on the jet found it there, in desperate need of restoration so it was purchased by the museum from the Saudi’s with a great deal of negotiation taking place to clinch the deal.
Before the jet could be shown to the public a number of conditions were written in the contract of sale, one being that the Saudi owners dining table and writing desk had to be removed from the plane. A Persian carpet had to be removed and all the gold taps had to be removed and finally no-one was to be allowed to take photographs inside the plane. All of these things were agreed to and the sale went ahead.
The plane has wood panelling throughout, seating for only 26 passengers, a large double bed with ensuite including a shower. The toilet looks like a very comfortable leather lounge chair and the crew were looked after with sheepskin covers of the seats in the cockpit.
We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Qantas Museum. Across the road was the Stockmans Hall of Fame which we visited afterwards. We arrived there in time to see the show which showcases the talents of the working sheep dogs and the sheep they are rounding up. The drover doing the commentary was quite a character and an excellent handler of the animals, not to mention his great skills at cracking an 8 foot long whip.
He demonstrated the training of the dogs by telling them when they could bark and when they had to be quiet. He said it is essential that the dogs do not bark if you are droving cattle. The reason being, the barking will spook the cattle and you will have a stampede.
We spent a very interesting hour watching the drover and his animals. We then watched a short movie about the outback and then toured the exhibits of the museum.The two museums took up the majority of the day.
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