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Inside the Archive #9 | The Super Constellation
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When the late Gordon Reid, founder of our Traffic column, was asked what got him into spotting, his answer was simple. One summer, he explained, he’d heard a new aircraft was arriving called the Super Constellation. “And, of course, you’d be daft not to be interested in an aircraft that looked and sounded like the Super Constellation did. That got me started in my middle teens.”
The Super Constellation, a variant of its obviously-titled little brother, first flew in 1951. In total, 579 were built, with Qantas taking 16. But the raw specifications don’t tell its full story. Put simply, ‘Connie’ was the aircraft that popularised truly long-haul travel, with Qantas deploying it on its legendary Kangaroo Route to London – then the first trans-global service in history. Such was its ability that Qantas carried the Melbourne Olympic flame from Athens to Darwin in a specially modified container onboard one of its aircraft. And that’s not to mention its stunning, curved design that made it the prettiest passenger aircraft in history.
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Yet perhaps the most famous Qantas Connie was never really a Qantas Connie at all. In 1990, some members from HARS were in Tucson, Arizona, when they spotted a derelict Super Constellation, C-121C, that originally belonged to the US Air Force. “In a moment of madness,” explains HARS, “the thought occurred that it should be recovered to complete Australia’s aviation history, and negotiations commenced for its acquisition.” Fast-forward to February 1996, and that very same aircraft, now VH-EAG, touched down in Sydney following one of the most impressive restorations of all time. Connie is now the only flying L-1049 Super Constellation in the world.
Australian Aviation’s Seth Jaworski shot the aircraft here in 2013 at Avalon. If you want to find out more, HARS created an award-winning documentary detailing the restoration, An Affair With Connie, that you can buy on their website.
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