Flashback: Delivery day for OJM at Boeing in Seattle. It was 1991 so they probably watched Dances With Wolves on the flight home

This is not your normal garage cleanout.

In October this year, deliveries of our eight Boeing Dreamliners start. And to make room, we’re saying goodbye to some old friends.

Five of our Boeing 747s will be retired, starting with VH-OJM.

Delivered new to Qantas in 1991, OJM (which is its registration and how we tell the difference between the same types of aircraft) carried more than four million people around the world safely.

OJM went back and forth to cities like London, Santiago, Johannesburg and Tokyo, racking up enough miles to fly to the moon-and-back…120 times.

Where’s the ignition: Every aircraft delivery includes a ceremonial key. From October we’ll take delivery of eight Dreamliners and of course, eight sets of keys

Over the years it went through a major cabin refresh, was given a total repaint, and had many thousands of engineering hours poured in to stay in top flying condition. What a trooper.

Parts have started arriving in Seattle, flown in on a converted 747 freighter called the Dreamlifter. VH-ZNA, which is the registration of our first 787, will be fully assembled and ready for delivery in a couple of months.

Former Qantas Engineer Scott Collins knows a thing a two about collecting new aircraft. He helped pick up 160 of them during his long career with us, including OJM. So we asked Scott, who now volunteers in our Heritage Centre, about farewelling one aircraft and getting ready to welcome another.