Flying the World’s Last Lockheed Constellation - HARS Australia

Video from the channel Sam Chui about Lockheed Constellation, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 15:43. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

A visit to the HARS museum in Albion Park (Illawarra, Australia), home to the last airworthy Lockheed Constellation. The author, who flew in it in 2009, tours the passenger cabin and flight deck with the HARS president, who explains how it is operated. The final part covers Qantas's first Boeing 747-400, VH-OJA, preserved at the same museum.

On the Constellation, the video shows the flight deck, with nosewheel steering available only on the left side, manual trim wheels and propeller reverse lights; the navigator's station with a sextant; the crew bunks; the galley; and the evacuation rope over the wing, since it had no slides. In flight, flames at the exhausts are normal: the engines have three power-recovery turbines. The triple tail fin allowed it to fit inside the hangars of the time, and the wingtip tanks added 400 gallons each. That 2009 flight lasted 40 minutes, from Canberra to Albion Park, at around 5,700 feet.

In 1947 the Kangaroo Route from Sydney to London totalled 55 flying hours and 93 hours of travel. The 747 VH-OJA landed at Albion Park on 8 March 2015 in front of around 35,000 people; HARS keeps about 25 aircraft airworthy, including two Caribous.