Qantas brings VR to the masses with a 360-degree video of Hamilton Island

Qantas recently made a splash with its announcement of VR gear for only its highest paying passengers. Now the airline is taking the tech to the masses with a video that offers a view into one of the most beautiful places in Australian: Hamilton Island.

Ideally, the video is viewed via an Occulus Rift headset so you can look around and feel the full experience. Even so, it's is viewable in 360 degrees from a Chrome browser via YouTube. As the video plays, you can experience the view from both the cockpit and the cabin as a plane descends from the sky down towards the beautiful blue waters for a landing on Hamilton Island. From there, the story unfolds following a couple as they experience the luxury of their hotel, the views from a copter and enjoying some underwater adventure.

In the embedded video below, be sure to click the gear icon and change the settings to at least 1080p for the higher quality. The video was also shot at the impressive 4K resolution, although most of us don't have the ability to enjoy the depth of clarity from that level of detail. Oh well — it's still really cool.