Farewell old friend and thanks

[tor lives]

Well....an emotional and nostalgic afternoon as the last Qantas 767 passenger flight left Melbourne for Sydney today. Special flight number QF767 pushed back from Gate 3 at approx 1715, and with that so ends an era in Qantas and Australian aviation history.
The great thing about being the Airport Manager is that I can authorise the opening of the observation deck and this is what I did today for this very special occasion.








I always enjoyed crewing the 767....she was a dam fine jet!!!
It's hard to believe that there will be no more passenger 767s flying the Australian skies. Farewell old friend and thanks for the memories. You served Qantas and the Australian flying public very well since 1985.
TOR
PS: Sorry for the average photos ..I didn't have my zoom lens
And finally.....my "selfy" with the old girl one last time after all these years together.

[hrtpaul]

Great pics mate. Oh and that last pic IS average

[Knotty]

Great shots Ray , of what was a fantastic aircraft for Qantas. I loved fuelling them , never a drama . VH-OGU was my last 767 fuelling , and I'm tipping it will be a while before I do one again . They will be sadly missed .

[Adam the Akrodude]

What a proud day for that great Boeing product! The 767 can bow out very proudly after such a stellar career. I've pax'd on them many times and can't for the life of me think of any issues ever occurring - personally not one tech issue causing a delay. This is very impressive considering the very high number of cycles these aeroplanes have done on the MEL/SYD/BNE routes. It would be interesting to see some stat's in this regard as to this aeroplanes efficiency and availability over the years.
Congratulations to one and all who worked on the 767 for QANTAS - a very hearty well done!

Now for 787's! We the customers want 'em! Well, I do anyway.

[tor lives]

And here is the highly sought-after very limited commemorative Tee shirt celebrating today's event.


Each passenger on the last flight, and involved Qantas staff members got one of these today. I will treasure mine and wear it with pride.
And let's not forget Ansett's contribution to the proud Australian 767 heritage and history. Other Australian 767 operators also included Australia Asia, Australian Airlines Mk2, (with the stunning ochare colours scheme), Crown Casino and the last remaining Aussie 767 operator...Qantas Freight.
TOR

[F-27pax]

Enough to bring a tear to your eye. A lovely aeroplane that I always, well almost always, enjoyed flying in. On our various trips to Perth we always liked getting those two window seats on the port side in cattle car which were pleasant enough. A couple of time we enjoyed the 767 business class too. The last time we went across the captain had to drop down to below 20,000 coming in over the West Australian coast for some reason I can't recall. A most enjoyable trip.

[VH-WAL]

Farewell 767, memories of this retired ATC

In the seventies the queen of the domestic skies was the Boeing 727 ("Thumper" to us). As great performers they were for their time, the long hot Perth summers really took a toll on their climb rate, in 35 degree plus temperatures they would drag their arses on the climb often leaving controlled airspace at the edge of the Perth Control zone (into no man's land where all the lighties were). Controllers had many a nervous moment scanning the radar for blips ahead of the low Thumpers flight path. Then the 767 came wow did we start getting caught out then! We used to have a departure ceiling of 6000 ft within a number of miles overhead Perth Airport, because no civil aircraft had the performance to bust this ceiling and penetrate the overlying military airspace the restriction was never specified to the pilots, we got embarrassed a few times with the 767 so we started putting the restriction on all jets (then we got Aerocommander 690s starting ops in Perth and they started busting the ceiling as well but that is another story). The rapid rate of climb took a little adjusting to.. it created new conflictions where none existed before but then it also reduced other types of conflictions and made our life easier. The older jet types would still not have reached top of climb by the edge of our radar coverage (about 160 nm) and a procedural separation standard had to be set up while they were still on climb. The 767 was cruising by 100 nm. Then in the early 90's we started having problems with Qantas 767s all of a sudden the pilots were always nagging us for further descent which we couldn't give them because they would descend below the control area steps, eventually Qantas management approached ours talked about the problem.. Qantas had gotten a new set of 767s with different engines. These engines had a higher idle thrust and they were buggers to get down, eventually we gave them extra track miles for them to descend comfortably.
Next in Sydney around 2000-2001, ATC's started hating Qantas 767s with a passion all of a sudden these jets weren't being flown like they used to be, they were much less flexible and became a chore to control (as much as a visiting foreign operator could be) The difference then was that Qantas was undergoing a rapid crew training change and now the jets were being flown by newbies to the type who were understandably quite conservative with the jet whilst they learnt the ropes. After a few years it was back to normal with the 76. The 767 then became the best performing of the Domestic jets, better than the 737s, why? the automation on the 737s regulated the performance to best economy parameters, the old 737-300 and 767 could be flown like hot rods, the later models with their automation and standard procedures meant they were rarely flown as such. So the 767 retired as just about the hottest domestic ship in the sky.

Fond memories, the 300 was just gorgeous

[VH-WAL]

Enough to bring a tear to your eye. A lovely aeroplane that I always, well almost always, enjoyed flying in. On our various trips to Perth we always liked getting those two window seats on the port side in cattle car which were pleasant enough. A couple of time we enjoyed the 767 business class too. The last time we went across the captain had to drop down to below 20,000 coming in over the West Australian coast for some reason I can't recall. A most enjoyable trip.

Sometimes the jetstream is so strong above 20,000 feet that jets make better time and better fuel economy by coming down, I remember going the other way Perth to Sydney with the jetstream up our bum we landed at Sydney after 3 hours and a few minutes!

[F-27pax]

Here's my little tribute to some nice times spent in QF (and AN occasionally) 767s. Here we are just crossing the Weatern Australian coast on the afternoon of 7 November 2010.



And here's what I turn to see in the cabin

[Knotty]

Some photos that were taken in the last few weeks of service .

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