Qantas Electras never went to London, unless Lockheed delivered them this way round rather than across the Pacific.
Originally Posted by
A30yoyo
It's recorded at Tokyo on airliners.net.....what was the routing to South Africa?....sounds like a long over-water stretch
It was indeed a long way, and operated for several years as such after the Electras replaced the Qantas Constellatons before finally going over to 707s. It was a joint route with SAA. In this 1963 timetable page (below) Qantas are using Electras and SAA are still using DC7Bs, both with a fortnightly frequency; there can't have been a lot of traffic. Routing was SYD-MEL-PER-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-JNB. Trip length for the crews, slipping along the way a fortnight at each point, must have been huge.
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...63/qf63-09.jpg
Regarding Tokyo, Electras went there as well, routing SYD-Darwin-Manila-HKG-TYO. This was a more frequent Electra operation; in 1960 here it was four a week as far as Hong Kong, with two a week extended to Tokyo. Another timetable scan (down at the bottom of the page) :
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...60/ba60-11.jpg
By 1962 Tokyo had gone over to Qantas 707s.