VH-OJU Moves On

‘The Boeing 747 had been an “integral and much-loved” member of the Qantas fleet for many years’

CHRIS SNOOK

“I went back to Manchester Airport on a 747 in 1987 as the First Officer and actually stopped the aeroplane waiting for our gate where I used to watch aeroplanes,” Captain Bracewell said in an interview with Australian Aviation.

“It was a hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment. It was fabulous.

“It’s one of those things that when you’re getting somewhat sick of this 15-hour sector and there is still five hours to go, you think back on times like that to remind you that you’re doing what you always wanted to do so suck it up and enjoy it.”
ABOVE: Qantas Boeing 747-400 VH-OJU on the way from Sydney to Los Angeles as the QF99. SETH JAWORSKI

Australian Aviation spoke with Captain Bracewell in the almost deserted economy cabin of Qantas 747-400 VH-OJU Lord Howe Island on Tuesday, 15 October 15 2019, the aircraft’s last day in Qantas colours.

Two days earlier, on Sunday October 13, the 19-year-old 747-400 had its final commercial flight for Qantas, when it operated the QF99 from Sydney to Los Angeles.

The flight was a celebration of sorts, with Qantas making all 364 business, premium economy and economy seats available for frequent flyer points redemptions when it announced the date of the flight in August as part of the airline’s “points plane” concept.

All 58 business class seats and 36 premium economy seats were occupied, while there were about 100 spare seats in the economy cabin when VH-OJU took off from Sydney Airport’s Runway 34L a little after 1700 local time.

Interspersed in the cabin were passengers simply heading to Los Angeles as part of their normal travel, unaware or unconcerned with the significance of the occasion, alongside bona fide aviation enthusiasts keen to get one more, possibly final, ride on the iconic aircraft.

A poignant moment came shortly after departure, when the pilots alerted passengers that the aircraft was flying over its island namesake some 425 miles nm east of Sydney.

About 13 hours later, following some dinner, rest and breakfast, VH-OJU touched down at Los Angeles International Airport at a little after 1200 local time and taxied its way to a remote stand on the western side of the airport.

Passengers collected their belongings, made their goodbyes and then headed off the aircraft, stopping on the way to the waiting buses for one final glimpse or photograph.

And just like that, the curtain had fallen on VH-OJU’s near two-decade career with Qantas.

All up, the aircraft had operated about 90,000 flight hours, representing an average of 12.8 flying hours per day; flew 70 million kilometres, or 95 return trips to the Moon; and carried about 2.5 million passengers for Qantas.

While VH-OJU’s time taking Qantas passengers to all continents of the globe had concluded, its flying career was not quite over.

The aircraft would enjoy a second life as a Rolls-Royce flying testbed.

On the day Australian Aviation spoke with Captain Bracewell, VH-OJU was being ferried from Los Angeles to Moses Lake in Washington State as QF6021. There were only 13 passengers on board alongside three cabin crew and four pilots.

At Moses Lake, technicians from engineering firm AeroTec would modify the 747-400 to enable Rolls-Royce to test engines for both commercial and business aircraft.

It would also be repainted into Rolls-Royce livery.

The bulk of the seats would be removed to make room for instruments, sensors and testing equipment as part of a two-year project to turn VH-OJU into what AeroTec chief executive Lee Human described as the “most advanced research development flying laboratory in the world”.

“That laboratory will be of course to support Rolls-Royce’s next generation engines and we are really looking forward to providing them a really amazing test platform,” Human told reporters at Grant County International Airport shortly after VH-OJU received a water cannon salute upon arrival.

“We are really excited to have this Qantas airplane arriving in Moses Lake for its next chapter in its life.”

Human described the project as a “big technical challenge” with lots of hurdles.

“Not everyone can bolt a fifth engine onto a 747-400. Airplanes are very advanced machines, the aerodynamics, the structural aspects, the systems aspects,” Human explained.

“We have to deal with fuel systems, we have to deal with hydraulics systems, electrical power, the structural aspect of actually holding on to this large engine. It is not trivial.”

“It’s our job to make sure that this is done safely. And it is our job to do all of the laboratory testing, ground testing and then flight testing to clear the airplane to show that it is suitable to be used by Rolls-Royce in their flight test program.”

Rolls-Royce director of development and experimental engineering Gareth Hedicker said the engine-maker was privileged to be the new owners of the 19-year-old VH-OJU.

Hedicker said the 747 was chosen as the ideal platform for its flying testbed because of its performance as a proven platform.

“The 747 was our final choice because of the altitude, the speed, the known pedigree and also the flexibility in terms of the size engines we can actually fit to it,” Hedicker told reporters on the tarmac at Moses Lake.

“In some cases we will be testing one-off demonstrators on this aircraft so it is important we actually have an aircraft where we know we are not having to test the aircraft, we are just testing the engine.”

“This aircraft can clearly for us operate very safely on its three conventional engines.”

Rolls-Royce said in a statement it was investing US$70 million (A$102 million) to purchase and refurbish the aircraft.

Hedicker said commercial aircraft engines would be tested on the existing wing, while business aircraft engines would be tested on a specially-built wing to be added to the top deck of the aircraft.

The 747-400, which will join the engine maker’s existing 747-200 flying test bed, was expected to have a further 15 years of flying with Rolls-Royce, albeit with much lower flying hours compared with its previous life with Qantas.

“Our flights are typically about five hours and it is a lot of ‘fly, look at the data, analyse, fly’ so a different use,” Hedicker said. “But still it will have 15 years really contributing to future generations of travellers.”

“Rolls-Royce, clearly we are absolutely passionate about continuing to improve the efficiency of our products, really thinking about reducing the fuel burn, thinking about how we continue to reduce those emissions and noise, really to actually get to a point where you can still travel but it is much more sustainable.”

“This aircraft will allow us to actually do that. It will allow us to keep pushing our technologies further and one of the things we’ve got coming as a next generation is our ultra fan demonstrator where we will actually use a number of different technologies to really take the engine to the next level in terms of future offerings.”

While most seats were being taken off the aircraft, Hedicker said some seats and the inflight entertainment system would remain on board and be used as a training asset.

Also, leaving some seats on board would help maintain the aircraft’s centre of gravity.

‘The most advanced research development flying laboratory in the world’

LEE HUMAN

“Obviously we can’t go out there typically and recruit engineers who are experienced in flight test,” Hedicker said.

“We will have about 15 engineers on the aircraft while it is operating and each of those engineers is looking at something different. We will use the inflight to be able to project what is on those screens to bigger screens to support training of additional engineers.”

Qantas executive manager of engineering Chris Snook said the Boeing 747 had been an “integral and much-loved” member of the Qantas fleet for many years.

“OJU has proudly worn the flying kangaroo for more than 20 years and we’re delighted that she has a long life ahead of her to help test and support the development of the next generation of aircraft engines,” Snook said in a statement.

‘It is a great legacy for this aircraft and a great legacy for Qantas’

DAVID BASSFORD

Qantas engineer David Bassford is responsible for ferrying retired 747-400s to new owners or to storage facilities in the United States desert should there not be a suitable buyer at the time the aircraft is withdrawn.

As a 30-year veteran of the airline, his career has coincided with the growth, and then decline of the 747’s importance in the Qantas fleet.

Speaking to Australian Aviation about 45 minutes before the aircraft was due to land at Moses Lake, Bassford said the process of handing over an aircraft had become easier with time.

However, emotions were never far from the surface on these sorts of occasions.

“There will be a ceremonial handover but for the commercial handover we need to do some work to the aircraft to take Qantas proprietary software off. We need to have the livery painted out,” Bassford matter-of-factly explained.

“There are engineering procedures and that is what we follow.”

“Obviously there is a bit of an emotional attachment, particularly this being the last of the Rolls-Royce powered 747-400s.”

The leap in capability of the 747-400 from the variants that preceded it not only led to the expansion of Qantas’s global network – as well as many other carriers globally – it also spawned a generation of skilled engineers and technicians to sustain the fleet.

It is this legacy that Bassford is very much a part of, having helped establish the engineering project group in 1988 that worked on the eventual introduction of the first 747-400 at Qantas the following year.

And that capability proved important to support the introduction to the fleet of next-generation aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787.

“This particular fleet has created a lot of opportunities not only for engineering but cabin and flight crew and caterers and travel agents and everyone that’s involved in taking people to the world and the world to Australia,” Bassford said.

“Each new aircraft that gets introduced helps introduce those new technologies and drives new skills and new expertise.”

Bassford, who is Qantas’s manager for aircraft projects, also noted the 747-400’s influence stretched beyond maintenance to areas such as the design and refurbishment of new cabin interiors.

“It is a great legacy for this aircraft and a great legacy for Qantas,” Bassford said.

“It brought through generations of support people right across not just engineering but other aspects of the business.”

“The 747-400 introduced the two-man crew so there was what they called the glass cockpit so there was a lot of automation.”

“The avionics suite was very different from the earlier aircraft and that created a lot of opportunities for training and development.”

It was a similar story for Captain Bracewell, who said he has been flying 747-400s for 22 of the 39 years he has been with Qantas.

“We’ve always had 747s since I have been with the company,” Captain Bracewell said.

“It’s sad to see them disappearing slowly but surely.”

“I suppose it is kind of a metaphor for the end of my flying career. That’s the way I see it.

“When the 747 is gone altogether I think I will probably leave.”

After peering through the fence for a glimpse of the 747-400 at Manchester Airport as a child, Captain Bracewell got the chance to see up close with his own eyes Qantas’s first 747-400 being built at Boeing’s final assembly line outside Seattle.

He said he came away from that visit with even more admiration for the iconic aircraft.

“It was a fascinating, a jaw-dropping experience in terms of the efforts that Boeing went to to make sure that the aeroplane was built as perfectly as possible,” Captain Bracewell said.

“I really came away from that experience saying ‘wow, I feel safe on this aeroplane no matter what is going on’.”

QANTAS’S FINAL 747 CHAPTER TO BE WRITTEN BY THE END OF 2020
Qantas officially began the long goodbye for aviation’s most iconic figure in May 2018 when chief executive Alan Joyce announced the then 10-strong 747-400/400ER fleet would be withdrawn by the time the airline celebrated its centenary at the end of 2020.

At the same time, Qantas exercised options for a further six 787-9s in order to be able to retire the last of the 747-400s.

Joyce said there had been some consideration given to upgrading the 747 to the same standard of cabin amenities on board the 787-9s already in the fleet, and keeping them beyond 2020.

However, he said the airline would have had to “spend a lot of money on reconfiguring them” and therefore the decision was made to go for brand new aircraft.

Qantas’s 364-seat 747-400/400ERs had 35 per cent more seats than its 787-9s, which were configured with 236 seats.

Despite the difference in seat count, Qantas has said previously the 787-9’s reduced maintenance needs, as well as more efficient aircraft patterning and reduced payload restrictions on long routes, meant the actual impact on the airline’s overall international capacity was expected to be “negligible”.

(Coincidentally, it was VH-OJU that featured in the background at Mascot’s Hangar 416 when Joyce, flanked by Qantas Second Officer Michael East, explained the decision to end 747 operations.)

Since that announcement in May, four 747-400s have been withdrawn, with VH-OJT msn 25565 Fraser Island retired in September 2018, VH-OJS msn 25565 Hamilton Island retired in February 2019, VH-OEB msn 25778 Phillip Island retired in June 2019, and, most recently, VH-OJU msn 25566 Lord Howe Island.

The retirement of VH-OJU, which was the last remaining Rolls-Royce-powered 747-438 in the Qantas fleet, left six GE-powered 747-438ERs (VH-OEE thru OEJ) delivered between 2002 and 2003.

In all, Qantas has operated 65 747s, taking delivery of 57 new 747s from Boeing, purchasing three 747‑ 400s second-hand and operating five leased aircraft at various points. And for a period between the retirement of its last 707 in March 1978 and the delivery of its first 767 in July 1985, Qantas even operated an all-747 fleet.

The first 747 entered service with Qantas in September 1971, and in time the airline would operate almost every major 747 variant, including the 747SP, the 747 Combi, the 747-300 (which introduced the extended upper deck), the 747-400, and the 747‑ 400ER (Extended Range).

There is no doubting the technological advancements of modern aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787.

For many though, there has not been – and unlikely to ever be – another aircraft to have so redefined, reimagined and revolutionised aviation as the 747.

“In terms of what it has done for the travelling public, this is absolutely out there by itself,” Captain Bracewell said.