Airshow of vintage warbirds and current RAAF assets by HARS.

This was the first Qantas 747-438, the twelfth -400 produced, accepted on the 11th August 1989 and called “City of Canberra”. The official registration is VH-OJA, and she holds the world record for the longest non-stop flight by a commercial aircraft – London to Sydney in August 1989 for a total flight time of 20hrs and 9 minutes at an average speed of ~893 km/h for a total distance of ~18,012km. During that flight, there were just 23 passengers and crew and the aircraft used a special blend of high density fuel to enable it fly the record distance. The extra fuel density enabled about an extra ten tonnes of fuel, increasing capacity to about 183 tonnes for the flight.

The City of Canberra was in service for 25.3 years, flew 13,833 flights, carried 4,094,568 passengers and has flown nearly 85 million kilometres, which is equivalent to 110.2 return trips to the moon.

HARS acquired The City of Canberra on 8 March 2015 as a gift from Qantas after Qantas cancelled a plan to retire her to an ‘aircraft graveyard’ in Victorville, California and instead donated the historic aircraft to HARS to be preserved.

Her final flight from Sydney to Illawarra Regional Airport was just ~12 minutes, the shortest delivery flight by a Qantas 747 and the first (and probably only) time this aircraft type has landed at Illawarra Regional airport. The flight was several months in planning including the pilots spending more than 25 hours in a flight simulator in preparation. The arrival was watched by tens of thousands of people gathered at all vantage points around the airport.

Now a static display and the interior is open to the public but you can also for a fee, do a walk over the top of a wing. Quite high up.

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