A WARTIME air service operated in secret is the latest attraction for the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, which celebrated the final restoration of its Catalina flying boat with a dinner on Saturday.
In doing so, the tourism business unveiled an attraction with the potential to add millions of dollars to the western Queensland economy.
The Indian Ocean high-priority mail and passenger service, dubbed the Secret Order of the Double Sunrise, was operated by Qantas in World War II, creating a world record in the process.
At a time when Japan had complete dominion of much of south-east Asia, Qantas took delivery of five unarmed Catalinas to perform a service for the Australian war effort, thanks to the experience of their pilots in flying long hauls over water.
Air links with the UK were broken in 1942 and it was the job of the civilian pilots on the special missions to re-establish them in flying boats protected only by camouflage paint, flying a distance of 8780km with almost no navigation aids, complete radio silence and heavily overloaded with fuel.
Captain Russell Tapp, first officer Rex Senior, flight engineer Frank Furniss and radio officer Glen Mumford took off from Nedlands on the Swan River on June 29, 1943, on the first service, bound for Lake Koggala in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
Mr Senior recalled that the knowledge they were commencing the first and longest non-stop passenger service in the world, across the lonely waters of the Indian Ocean, gave them all "a considerable thrill".
The 'Cats' only travelled at 100 miles an hour (160km/h)and an average flight took 28 hours. Crew and top-secret passengers saw the sun rise twice on these journeys of endurance, hence the 'double sunrise' tag.
They made 271 safe crossings of the Indian Ocean, delivering 860 high-priority government and military passengers, microfilmed mail and urgent war-related freight, until July 1945.
The flying experience has been authentically re-created in the new exhibit, even to the extent of an eight-minute audio track of pilots speaking on board and vibrating 'buttkickers' used by drummers, but tourists won't have to sit in the unpressurised, noisy and cramped aircraft for more than 24 hours these days.
According to QFOM chief executive Tony Martin, the museum and attractions such as the Catalina PBY do more than tell a wonderful story - they attract tourists that pour dollars into the region.
Just the wages for the 35 staff employed come to $1 million a year.
"Research shows that every dollar spent has a magnifying effect of $7.50 in a community, so the value of these dollars can't be understated," Mr Martin said.
The whole Catalina project, from finding it in Spain to its journey back to Australia via a breakdown in Thailand and its ultimate restoration in Longreach, took more than three years and a budget of just over $1m.
Mr Martin said it looked like "a New York taxi" when it arrived - bright yellow with a red nose cone and an ugly underbelly - but a loving restoration by more than 20 volunteers, including painters from Qantas in Brisbane, ex-QFOM board members and directors, and people from the Historical Restoration Society in Wollongong, have transformed it.
Some $300,000 from the John Villiers philanthropical trust backed the private funds raised for the project.
When the museum's other big planes, the legendary Boeing 747 and the Boeing 707, went on display, visitor numbers increased by 10pc each time and an extra six staff positions were created.
Mr Martin hopes the addition of the flying boat and its daring wartime story will have similar results, and he's looking forward to an even greater boost once their Super Constellation acquisition and repatriation from the Philippines is finalised.
"I feel we've only scratched the surface of what we can do here, with funding.
"Attractions like this will help Tourism Queensland with its aim of one million visitors by 2020."
Qantas was nearly destroyed by the war and received a grand total of 100 pounds from the government for its vital service as part of the allied war effort, and when Hudson Fysh recommended official awards for the Qantas crews involved, the government refused to acknowledge their courage and skill.
Seventy years later, they have finally received that recognition.