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.