TUCKED away in an Airport West industrial estate is a curious museum dedicated to the once great domestic airline, TAA.
Here you’ll find the menu from the first TAA flight from Laverton to Sydney on September 9, 1946 – 21 passengers ate scrambled eggs, tea and scones.
Newspaper articles tell how in 1960 a crazed gunman hijacked a TAA plane between Sydney and Brisbane and was subdued by two pilots and a hostess.
There’s a painting of Nola Rose, whose face adorned TAA ads and tickets for 30 years after a TAA publicist approached her on Bondi Beach in 1952.
But just as fascinating are the museum volunteers – just 29 of them, who lovingly keep the proud TAA legacy aloft on the smell of an oily rag. Mostly former TAA employees, they curate nearly 200,000 items on one sprawling floor of a Qantas training centre. But it nearly didn’t happen.
In 1993, historical gems – signs, crockery, letters, uniforms – were being tossed out as Qantas merged with Australian Airlines, which until 1986 had been called TAA or Trans-Australia Airlines.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/devotees-keep-taa-legacy-aloft-20110810-1imsp.html#ixzz1UfP60Dhu
