Qantas Museum in Longreach

After our lovely tour of the planes we had a look through the Qantas Founders Museum.  The museum is not run by Qantas, it’s a not-for-profit organisation. The museum tells the story of the founders of Qantas. (Okay, that’s obvious from the name.)  It’s an excellent museum with so, so much information.  There were four founders, the museum is full of information on them and how Qantas came to be. The original (now heritage listed) Qantas hangar still stands.  We headed there first to see the displays inside. Being able to climb inside is always fun.  This one had a toilet, basically a box at the front of the plane. One more plane to look at, though we couldn’t climb inside. There were various mannequins and artefacts that give a sense of what life was like in the 1920s or thereabouts, the early years of Qantas. Check out the wooden frame!  Early planes were wood frames covered in fabric.  Sounds inviting, doesn’t it? We enjoyed the small theatre, this lovely model plane was outside along with some vintage posters. In the main museum was a flight simulator which of course everyone had to try! There were several of these kids’ signs around the museum.  They were perfect.  There was so much to read in here, and these help kids focus on the main things. That particular sign above was talking about this plane which was in the middle of the room.  A replica of the AVRO, the first Qantas plane.  We were there some time before I realised it was rotating.  It moves so slowly that I hadn’t noticed, I got quite the start when I looked over and it was facing a different direction! Y’all know what Qantas stands for, right? They had a small model of the plane inside a case where you could play with the levers to make it move.  Flaps up, flaps down.  Nose up, nose down.  Great fun. There is some fabulous signage nearby to explain how it all works. This little guy could just reach and had many turns.  He’d carefully place his blue rock and Mater on the floor nearby, then pick them up when he was done.  I’m amazed we haven’t lost either of those yet!  The people in the background are watching a short film nearby. There’s a gorgeous layered wooden map on the back wall.  The mannequins are wearing various flight attendant uniforms. I don’t remember what this was, I took a picture of it because it was so pretty!  I love seeing illuminated pages.  Paul McGinness was one of the founders. This is a model of a cabin from Qantas’ first airliner, before this they’d used converted war planes.  This cabin was a step up in passenger comfort since it was enclosed.  Stifling, but passengers were protected from the wind, sun, or rain.  See the Rolls Royce logo toward the front of this engine?  We saw that on the 747 outside, too. Most of the main  museum was one large room.  Off to one side, near the flight simulator, was a children’s play area.  I was so glad for it, I could see it from anywhere in the room and felt safe leaving the kids there while I wandered.  The kids weren’t extremely interested in the museum, they’d already been through the plane tour and the hangar.  By the time they’d finished the flight simulator they were pretty much done.  I could have spent at least another hour there soaking in all the information.  At the end I managed to get the older boys settled in listening to some audio which bought us some extra minutes.  Really excellent museum, this post doesn’t do it justice!