The market research, and indeed the flying that CWS did while she was operational the first time, shows and showed that Perth really does have the base to sustain the operation.
Yes, she can be expensive to run, but not as much as some people believe - and most people would guess that yes, maintenance is one of the biggest costs in the operation, but a big way of saving money is to be preventative in maintenance, in particular with regards to engine handling. Classic Wings crews are incredibly lucky to be able to draw on the experience of Pionair and Southern DC-3 Trust crews with the operation of CWS. After all, she was the pride of those crews for 13 years, let alone the other 2 Daks to go with it, and all gave and still give brilliant service to those operators.
The aeroplane is still very airworthy, she is run every couple of weeks and flown usually once a month or so to ensure that everything works properly - and yes that was her you saw at Perth a few weeks ago, getting some crew currency up in preparation for some checks and the proving flight. Yes, we are that close.
I will never deny that we made mistakes, yes we did, but we have learnt from them. And it is from this learning that the operation will be even better the second time around.
Any sane person would have given up by now, but if it is possible to fall in love with a machine then, hey, we have, and so we won't give up on it.
The support we have received from a lot of people is amazing, and we are very hopeful that support will continue during the restart of the operation.
We have managed to break, saw, cut, bite, get through the last bits of red tape - and I know that most will be stunned as to what has had to happen - and as soon as those last two points are complete, there'll be an operational DC-3 in Perth again (and you'll get your flights!)
And how do I know this stuff? I'm the guy sitting in the right hand seat...