Have you ever wondered what is under the floor in a jumbo jet? How does sitting in the pilots seat for an hour sound? You can do all of this and more at the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society or the HARS Aviation Museum as they’re better known.
I recently had the opportunity to do their Boeing 747 Premium Tour, where three guides give you a tour of the aircraft that is second to none. You see virtually everything, both what passengers usually see and all the places they don’t.
Arriving at HARS
You can easily spy the Qantas jumbo as you walk up to HARS, as it is the largest plane on site. There is another jet at the entrance so everything is simple to find.
Exterior Tour of the Boeing 747
First off, a former Qantas engineer takes you all around the outside of the aircraft. Everything is pointed out, from the static ports to the refueling systems, so you get a comprehensive look at things.
How About A Cabin Tour?
You are handed off to a former Qantas Cabin Crew member who takes you on a tour inside the cabin. A highlight is going up in the crew rest area to see where cabin crew sleep. I thought it cool finding the black boxes located here.
An Hour In The Cockpit
HARS Boeing 747 Premium Tour includes an hour in the cockpit with a former Qantas pilot. You sit right up front in the seats and your guide explains how things work and lets you work the various controls.
The Bowels Of A Boeing 747
After touring the pilots haven, you are handed back to the ground engineer to climb up into the belly of the plane through the ground access hatch where the nose landing gear is.
Lunch Time
All the people working at HARS are volunteers and this includes the people who work in the Cafe. There is a pretty good menu available and I ordered a burger for lunch.
Boeing 747 Wing Walk And Connie
Paying a little extra lets you go out on the wing of the Boeing 747 to see the plane from a unique vantage point. Not wanting to pass that up, we got into our safety gear and trundled out to experience that.
Overall Thoughts
You really can’t beat a day out at HARS, crawling all over a Boeing 747 and getting knowledge and stories from some excellent volunteers. The VIP tour costs A$195 (US$135, €120, £105), with the wing walk costing an additional A$45 per person.
HARS is located at Albion Park in New South Wales in Australia. This is approximately two hours by train from Sydney’s Central Station to Albion Park Rail. Happily the train journey is quite scenic so the time passes relatively quickly. The HARS Aviation Museum is about 10 minutes walk from the station.
Check out the HARS web site here for all the details. John Travolta is donating his ex-Qantas Boeing 707-138B to the organisation soon, so you will have another aircraft to visit when you go.
Have you ever visited HARS? What do you think of the experience, is it something you’d do or not? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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My first Experience with a 747 was at the Other End of it’s history. It remains as Impressive Today as it was 51 Years ago when it was New!
I was working at United Airlines SFO Maintenance Base in 1969 when they were preparing for the Arrival of their First 747. A New Huge Hangar was built to handle the Giant Aircraft and a Designated Service Crew was formed and trained to be Ready for it. That day came on July 3,1969.
PanAm had been operating 747’s from SFO for a while and I recall the first time I saw a PanAm 747 parked near the fence next to the 101 Freeway as I was going to work at Midnight that I went home the next morning and drove my Wife back to SFO just to SEE it! Now if that seems strange today I can attest to the fact that the 747 was a Giant (no pun intended) Leap in the Airliner World! As the first Jumbo Jet it was Impressive in every Dimension. It’s not such a Big plane today but in 1969 it was So Much bigger than the airliners of the day it seemed it was like something from another world.
I was fortunate to be selected as part of United designated 747 Team and we were issued special I.D. badges to permit us access to and around the First United 747.
When that First United 747 arrived Everyone at the Base wanted to see and explore it But it was put into it’s New hanger and only the Company Big Wigs and the Team members were allowed on/in it.
Because that 747 would be used on United’s SFO to Hawaii Route the Maintenance would be done at Night while the aircraft flew in the daytime.
The First night the Director of Maintenance told us to “Crawl all over and inside this aircraft and get to know it and tomorrow we will Go to Work on it!” We did just that! This early 747 had a Downstairs Galley on the lower Cargo level with a chain drive elevator. the View from the Cockpit Evac. door was so high Up it was frightening.
Probably the most welcome site to we Mechanics was that we could Stand Up in the lower cargo/baggage holds!
If you want to watch one of the most impressive feats of Aircraft Operation do a Google Search for a Video of a 747 Landing Gear Retraction Test (Gear Swing) on YouTube.
That was a time of so many changes in Airline Travel and I’m glad I was there and a part of it.
I have seen some pictures of the original Boeing 747 beside a Boeing 707 and other aircraft like that. It truly is a major increase in size over those that came before. You must have been very proud to have been on the team that helped to introduce the aircraft to the airline. Having actually crawled over some parts of the 747 that passengers never see, I can only imagine how much you got to do. I never had a chance to look out of an upper deck door… I can imagine that would be very scary. I know that for evacuating a 747 upper deck nowadays they do prefer that you go downstairs if at all possible. I think it’s very easy to injure yourself if you go from upstairs. I’ll had a look at the videos – it’s some engineering that goes into designing the gear and retract mechanism, isn’t it? Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, I enjoyed the read! Exciting times indeed!