Sixdemonbag
Only now as an old fart my braincell levels have reduced so I can learn to fly
I think I just realised (at about 5.00am this morning) why AN ended up with such a mixed and hence costly fleet - Abeles only knew about trucks and he thought that aircraft were jusat expensive trucks.
Having worked with some logistics companies I know how they buy their trucks - they go out to tender and they find which of Kenworth, Mack, Mercedes, Iveco etc. are desperate for a big sale.
I suspect that this is what Abeles did. I have only one bit of hard evidence for this. Back in 1980 (or 81?) Sunfish put together the maintenance budget for AN and its brand new 737/727/767? fleet. The number came out at about $110 million.
As usual, after the normal vetting, this was dutifully submitted up the line until it got to Peter A. Sir Peter's response in his deep Hungarian accent, as reported to me, was "You mean I buy all these brand new airplanes and you want THIS much money? What gives? they are still under warranty?"
The next thing Sunfish knows he is frogmarched into Graeme McM's office and given the third degree about his calculations and assumptions. Fortunately for me, these stood up, and I was able to provide the background information to support my position.
What I suddenly realised today was that Abeles question made sense if he was thinking of aircraft just as expensive trucks, which as we all know, they aren't.