Issue 236: Qantas

Historic Times at Qantas

First 707 returns, private buyout bid

On December 16 2006 Qantas’s very first jet aircraft, Boeing 707-138B City of Canberra, landed at Sydney after a 14,000nm (25,950km) journey from England.

It was the culmination of the most complex restoration project ever undertaken by Australians. . . most of them retired Qantas engineers in their 60s. Jeff Watson was on board the aircraft for its delivery flight. In the dying light of an English winter day a smoky trail appears in the pink sky. As I stand and watch it gets nearer and resolves into an Australian icon. It is Qantas’s first jet airliner, a Boeing 707-138B returning to Southend airport after its first test flight over the North Sea.