Qantas flying boats film found

[Old Farang]

Qantas celebrates centenary with release of 'very rare' Empire flying boat film reel

Qantas celebrates centenary with release of '''very rare''' Empire flying boat film reel - ABC News (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-15/qantas-celebrates-centenary-with-bygone-era-flying-boat-film/12881604)

The almost-forgotten travel era of the Qantas Empire flying boats has been brought back to life with the discovery of a never-before-released film reel dating back to the 1930s.

The nine-minute colour film was uncovered inside a small tin at a Qantas storage base in Sydney, providing a detailed look at the once-popular water-based aircraft of a bygone era.

The unique footage has been digitised and released by Qantas in celebration of its centenary this week.

166121

[JDNSW]

Interesting, although I would have thought that it was possible to do a better job of improving the quality, especially colour, in the digitising.

The Empire flying boats were the equivalent of the Sikorsky boats that were used slightly earlier initially for the Hawaii service, but were shorter range, being designed for the Imperial Airways and Qantas routes that had in turn been designed for short range aircraft such as the HP42 and DH86, and worked on the basis that anyone who could afford the airfare would want to sleep in a comfortable bed and not travel at night. This meant no more than about 1,000nm days, with one refuelling stop.

Significant differences from the Sikorsky included that the Empire boats needed to operate in a much wider array of environments, from a UK winter to wet season Darwin to summer Khartoum, and they were designed primarily to carry mail with passengers as an extra.

They were the immediate predecessor of the Sunderland military flying boat and were replaced in airline service after the war by sunderlands converted (or I think there were a few new builds) to Sandringhams. The original Empire boats were mostly lost during the war. Qantas had one shot down while in airline service off the coast of Timor, and another doing an evacuation flight from Batavia (Jakarta), two were lost on the water in an air raid on Broome, and I seem to remember all of the remaining ones ended up being impressed into the RAAF, or transferred back to BOAC after the London -Australia flights ceased. in 1942. None were returned to Qantas after the war - at least one crashed in Port Moresby in RAAF service.

[3toes]

When the world returns to some kind of normality these might be worth a visit if you are traveling through

There is an ex Ansett Sandringham on display. Added value is you can go on board and look around the plane

Our Exhibits | Solent Sky (https://www.solentsky.org/exhibitions)

This is in Southern Ireland and is an interesting way to send a couple of hours

Learn the History of North Atlantic Aviation at Foynes Flying Boat Museum (https://www.flyingboatmuseum.com/aviation-museum/)

[Tote]

We went to Solent Sky in 2018 and it was a morning very well spent, including getting to sit in the flight deck of the Sandringham


Regards,
Tote