Whilst I doubt my experience is unique, it is a fact of life that I have never enjoyed the sort of back up one expects as a customer who has bought an aircraft from a factory which built it and which contracted to support it.

Starting in 1949 with very much used DC-3’s, then on to ex BEA Vikings and Ambassadors, ex Canadair Argonauts and ex Pan Am DC-4’s and DC-7DF’s, with ex Flying Tiger CL-44’s and ex KLM DC-8’s, the entire story has been one of secondhand hand-me-downs, but with a factory still in operation to which as a several times removed customer, one could always turn to for help. On my acquisition of Carvairs in 1971 when I bought BAF, the same situation applied, and having a much modified obsolete aircraft did not exactly enhance the ease of maintenance.