How much did it cost Australian volunteers to return a Super Constellation to flight?

The Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS), an Australian aviation preservation association, set out to bring a flightworthy Super Constellation back to the country. To achieve this it raised $800,000, and its members devoted 16,000 hours of work to the project, all of it voluntary. The result was the return to the air of an aircraft that had been grounded for about eighteen years.

The aircraft was built as a C-121C for the United States Air Force, with serial number 54-0157 and construction number 4176, and was delivered on 6 October 1955. After its operational life, in June 1977 it was placed in storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, the great American military aircraft boneyard. HARS took it on for restoration in November 1991.

Work began in May 1992 at the Pima Air and Space Museum, next to Davis-Monthan, with an initial five-year plan. The aircraft flew again in September 1994, well ahead of schedule. On 3 February 1996, now carrying the Australian registration VH-EAG, it landed in Sydney. Since then it has been one of the few Super Constellations still flightworthy in the world. As a USAF C-121C, it retains the square windows that distinguished this version from the Navy's R7V-1, which had round ones. Its case is often cited as an example of what an organization built on volunteer work can achieve against the technical complexity of keeping a 1950s four-engine piston aircraft alive.