To celebrate Qantas’ 90th anniversary last year, boutique film production company The Film Bakery created a documentary tracking six of the most pivotal aircraft in the airline’s history called “From the Outback to the World”. Some of the footage they found is unbelievable!
The team behind the film were given unprecedented access to the Qantas film archives, which had film dating back to the 1920s when the airline was founded in remote Queensland by two enterprising 25 year olds.
The documentary tracks six of the planes that made that helped turn Qantas into the huge international airline it is today – the wooden Avro 504k biplane, which struggled in the outback heat but gave Qantas its first aircraft:
The Short C, Empire Flying Boats, which moved Qantas from Queensland to Sydney over a weekend and landed on Sydney harbour so nonchalantly:
The Lockheed Constellation, which saw the introduction of flight attendants and required 10 crew to fly:
The Boeing 707, which was the first plane to combine the jet technology from British, American and German Engineers after WWII:
The Boeing 747, which opened up international air travel to the masses and saw the introduction of business class cabins, a development copied by all other airlines:
And The Airbus A380, which has brought the airline into the 21st century:
These clips are just a snippet of the entire film, which made its debut at the Australian International Air Show this month. Given the quality of some of the footage, the team at the Film Bakery actually had to create software to enhance the quality of the original film, removing dust and grain on a frame by frame basis.
If you want to see the entire thing, the film is available to buy for $30. If you’re an aviation geek, it’s a must watch…