production Following the completion of flying tests performed by the prototype, the British government exercised considerable indecision over the fate of the programme. In addition to the prototype, a further two Princesses (G-ALUO and G-ALUP) were under construction, but these would ultimately never fly. While a decision from the government was effectively pending, the three existing aircraft were placed into storage, being cocooned and retained, one at Cowes and two at Calshot Spit; it had been hoped that work on the programme would be restarted when a buyer was found. Over the ensuing years, several offers were issued with the intention of purchasing the Princesses, including two proposals which would have involved re-engining them with Rolls-Royce Tynes. In 1954, Aquila Airways had offered £1 million each for the stored Princesses, but this offer was rejected. In 1957, Saro itself had proposed the conversion of the aircraft to serve as landplane troop carriers/freighters. In 1964, the three Princesses were all purchased by Eoin Mekie on behalf of Aero Spacelines, who planned to use them as heavy-duty freight aircraft for transporting Saturn V rocket components for NASA. When the cocooning was removed, it was found that they were badly corroded (the contract for maintenance and inspection of the stored aircraft had been allowed to lapse, which resulted in the airframes deteriorating rapidly), and all three Princesses were broken up by 1967. They were the last fixed-wing commercial aircraft produced by Saunders-Roe. The company constructed one more fixed-wing design, the Saunders-Roe SR.53 mixed-power (rocket and turbojet) fighter design; aside from that venture, the company primarily concentrated its efforts on helicopters and hovercraft after this point. Proposals for reuse In 1958, information on the Princess was shared with the United States Navy, who were at the time examining the possibility of converting the three stored aircraft to make use of nuclear power. This interest resulted in a delegation from Saro being dispatched to the US for the purpose of discuss a sale of the preserved Princesses. However, this interest ultimately amounted to nothing. In the wake of the success of his Pregnant Guppy, constructor Jack Conroy discussed his concepts for other outsize transports with Air Progress in their publication, World's Greatest Aircraft (Petersen Publications, 1973). Conroy considered the creation of an outsize transport from the Princess to have been basically feasible, in that it shares a sectional 'double-bubble' fuselage construction similar to that of