Had a very busy past week with work. A number of months ago I was asked if I would be part of a crew to take one of our ( Qantas ) B747's to Mojave desert on it's final retirement flight. Of course I agreed and last week three of us flew B747 VH-OJS, KSFO to KMHV. The previous day VH-OJS flew Sydney to SanFransico QFA 73 on a full commercial service with 300+ passengers and the next day just 3 pilots flew it 39 Mins. to the desert. Mojave is an interesting arrival. We had to be visual (VFR) below 18,000' to an airport 2800'amsl with no ground aids, only a PAPI RWY 30. and a very tight circuit to stay out of Edwards Airforce Base airspace.( back to my GA days ) The aircraft flew beautifully on it's final flight, hard to belieive it was retiring. VH-OJS was 19 years of age, flew about 95.000 hours and around 9.500 cycles. It was a emotional day when we drove away leaving an old friend in the desert. The engines were removed the following day, as they were sold to a company in Europe. It will be stripped of usable parts, then ultimately recycled. Photo 2. L/R PGC, Capt Mark Kelly, F/O Andrew Packwood. It was freezing cold in the desert and blowing like a bugger.