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Qantas Founders Museum

Longreach, Australia

The museum describes the story of how an Australian airline with a single biplane became one of the biggest in the world. 

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Qantas Founders Museum Robert Link / CC BY-SA 2.0
Qantas Founders Museum Robert Link / CC BY-SA 2.0
The hangar from which the first flight took flight took place. Queensland Govt. Heritage Staff
The 747-200 (A roof hangs over it now with other planes). Nutloaf
The main museum view Camerong
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Picture this: It’s 1920 in Longreach in Central Queensland, which is almost in the middle of nowhere. You want to start an airline with a war-spared Avro 504, and you want to become the biggest airline in the world. This museum shows how three folks—Paul McGinness, Sir Hudson Fysh, and Sir Fergus McMaster—did just that.

The museum was not founded or run by Qantas, but by an independent group to preserve the area’s history. It is home to a number of artifacts, including the planes themselves, that tell the long history of Qantas. The museum details the airline’s history, from when plans were made to start it to where it is today as one of the world’s most powerful airlines.

The hangar from the first takeoff still stands, and there’s also a building constructed for the museum that will knock any Avgeeks’ socks off: The Airpark, which contains a decommissioned 747, 707, DC 3, and a Super Constellation, among others. You can tour some of them, but not all. However, tour guides can put you up on top of the 747’s wings. Not a bad compromise, huh?

Know Before You Go

Luminescent Longreach, which is a light show being preformed on the aircraft bodies in the Airpark, happens every night starting after sunset. It ALSO tells the story of the company.

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November 14, 2023
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