With Singapore Airlines gradually moving away from B747 operations to Australia and changing many of the services over to B777 and A380s, I was prompted to have a look at how things were when I first started photographing aircraft in Sydney.
In the 70s, 80s and 90s the Boeing 747 was the "Queen of The Skies" with most international carries operating the type. Over the past 10 years, the introduction of the long range twins with ETOPS, and now the A380 for a smaller number of airlines, B747 movements in and out of Sydney have slowly diminished.
With apologies for the quality of the scanned 30 year old photographs, so what did it look like back then ?
Singapore Airlines B747-200 9V-SQQ touching down on Runway 25 in August 1982
Singapore Airlines B747-300 "Big Top" 9V-SKA in August 1983 (now an A380 registration)
Qantas operated 2 B747-200SPs VH-EAA seen here at the Jet Base in November 1981 (look at the cars in the car park)
Malaysian B747-200 9M-MHI in February 1982 (security back then was just timber posts and plastic fence - we would sit on top of the
fence half way down the bay and photograph)
KLM B747-200 PH-BUO in March 1982
UTA B747-200 in June 1981
Garuda Indonesian Airways B747-200 PK-GSF in February 1982
Cathay Pacific B747-200 VR-HIA in July 1980
Air India B747-200 VT-EFU in August 1982
South African Airways B747-200 lining up on Runway 16 in February 1982