Qantas Boeing 747 Farewell - Sydney Airport
190Australia's last passenger jumbo jet has left our shores for the final time, with the Qantas Boeing 747 departing on Wednesday afternoon, bound for an aircraft "boneyard" in the Californian desert.
Flight QF7474 left Sydney for Los Angeles at 3.28pm. From there it will fly to Mojave desert for storage.
The plane was given a water cannon salute as it approached the runway, and it taxied past Shep's Mound where hundreds of planespotters had gathered to wave goodbye.
The jumbo took off and headed north to perform a final lap of Sydney Harbour and the eastern suburbs. It then detoured south to do a flyover of the HARS Aviation Museum near Wollongong where it dipped its wings to salute Qantas' first 747-400, VH-OJA, which is preserved there.
The flight path shows the jumbo then headed east over the Pacific ocean before turning northwest and tracing the airline's Flying Kangaroo logo in the sky. The detour meant the plane performed a U-turn above Taree on the NSW Mid North Coast to mark the kangaroo's tail.
Qantas held a lavish ceremony prior to take-off full of nostalgia with video tributes, poem recitals and impassioned tributes to give the 747, which served the airline in various forms for nearly 50 years, a fitting farewell.