The Argonaut was the unsung hero of BOACs 1950s aircraft crisis following the demise of the Comet 1 in 1954 and the drastically delayed arrival of the Britannia in 1957. Introduced in 1948 it covered almost all the network except the USA and Caribbean and Australia. Its range wasn't a problem on BOAC's multi-stop largely Commonwealth route pattern and it offered a pressurised cabin ( which the DC 4 never did) , comparable to the DC 6 series and a competitive degree of comfort in both First and Tourist versions. Its reliability was good as most engineers had met the Merlin in its wartime guises and there wasn't much about them that they didnt know, although their civilan lives were vastly greater than the average military ones.
In 1948-50 it was envisaged that BOACs piston fleet would all be gone by 1955,but the above failures of their replacements produced a crisis which was overcome by keeping the Argonauts on African and Eastern Routes (but not beyond Singapore on the Australian route) and they soldiered manfully on
until the final service to Abadan in early 1960. Additionally more second hand Stratocruisers and Constellations were purchased to cover the Atlantic and initially Australia but later South Africa and many Eastern Routes First Class services. Peak utilisastion was probably in 1956 as the Britannia's started to replace them first to South Africa and then to the East from February 1957. Apart from a few Middle East services their last strongholds were the East and West Africa terminators which they hung on to until Britannia 312s displaced the 102s to South Africa in the winter of 1958 and the 102s shifted a notch down the scale. They suffered less from competitors DC 6s and 7s on the colonial routes as traffic rights were the preserve ofthe UK, but in any case, apart from the cabin noise level, were as comfortable as most other piston aircarft and a great deal more reliable than most.
The 4 aircraft which went to East African Airways in 1957/8, including the one in Aden Airways titles, but EAA logos in EvansB's photograph of Feb 28th (on Page 2 of this item) gave EAA sterling service at low cost of ownership. As with all EAA aircraft ,right through to the Comet4 and VC 10 ,they were kept in immaculate external condition, which was seldom a BOAC strong point. They also operated the Nairobi/London route until September 1960 together with Nairobi-Aden-Pakistan-India and intra African services until EAA's third Comet arrived.
There is an excellent book about the Argonaut in all its guises called "The Canadair North Star" by Milberry , published by Canav Books.