JOHN VOSS COLLECTION
No. 5273. Boeing 707-138B (VH-EBH c/n 18067) Qantas Overseas Airline "City of Darwin"
Photographed at Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, December 22, 1964, by John Voss

Boeing 707-138B

04/30/2006. Remarks by John Voss: "I had just de-planed from the aircraft after a flight from Nandi, Fiji.

Registered as N93134 the first 707-135B to be building flew for the first time from Seattle, Washington, USA, on April 13 1961. The 707-135B featured: Pratt & Whitney JT3D-1 turbofan engines; a 3 ft (0.91 m) enlarged vertical stabilizer; a ventral fin; leading edge flaps. With 136 ft 2 in (41.5 m) of body length it was the shortest 707 version and 13 were built exclusively for Qantas.

Qantas took delivery of their first turbofan-engined aircraft on July 29, 1961 and it was registered as VH-EBH the next day. It became also the first Qantas aircraft to carry the V-JET livery. Last Qantas flight was made on June 30, 1968, it was sold to British West India Airways (BWIA) of Trinidad, on August 21, 1968 and stricken from the Australian registry on September 9, 1969.

Reregistered as 9Y-TDC the aircraft flew with BWIA till November 18, 1977. On March 18, 1978 it was sold for VIP conversion and was registered as VR-CAN. In September 1981 it was stored at Marana - Pinal Airpark, Arizona, where it stood cocooned for over twenty years, but the wings and tail had been chopped off by March 2005."


Created April 30, 2006