An American team reassembles John Travolta's former Boeing 707 at the HARS museum at Shellharbour Airport after it was shipped to Australia.
What the video covers
Written in our own words. It only describes what the video shows and says.A 707 that could not fly to Australia
ABC News reports from Shellharbour Airport in New South Wales, where the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) is putting the wings and engines back on the Boeing 707 that John Travolta donated to the museum. According to the reporter, the original plan was to fly the aircraft to Australia, but it was not airworthy. For about ten years HARS volunteers tried to fix the problems, but the more issues they fixed, the more they found. In the end they decided to take the aircraft apart and send it to Australia by ship, which happened in May this year.
The fuselage, wings and tail came out of the back of a bulk carrier at Port Kembla and were then moved about 15 kilometres by road to Shellharbour Airport. There HARS volunteers did as much work as they could before an American team arrived to put the aircraft back together.
Cleaning and corrosion work
Jim Marshall, the HARS project engineer for the 707, explains what the volunteers have done since the aircraft arrived in the hangar. The interior had a very bad smell after being closed up on the ship, which they removed before tidying and cleaning the cabin. They also found significant corrosion around the aircraft, which they have been treating, cleaning and painting. He says the paint job is about 90 per cent finished.
The American reassembly team
The team comes from Worldwide Aircraft Recovery, the same company that dismantled the aircraft in Brunswick, Georgia. According to the report, it is the only company in the United States that offers a full dismantle, transport and reassembly service. The team is reattaching the wings and the landing gear, a job that involves replacing thousands of bolts, and has only six weeks in Australia. One of the team members explains that each wing has four different overlaps at the top, bottom and back, which have to line up very closely; once the work starts, he says, it works like a zipper.
A luxury cabin for visitors
The next milestone, the reporter says, is opening the aircraft to visitors. The cabin has two bedrooms, a bathroom, a shower and plush seating with a meeting area. Before John Travolta owned the aircraft, it was leased to Frank Sinatra. Even after all the work the 707 will not be airworthy, because the problems that stopped it flying to Australia still exist. HARS hopes to get it to the point where it can be powered up and driven out onto the tarmac so that people can ride around in it. According to the reporter, John Travolta is expected to attend the unveiling.
