He also helped her contact another former Aeroflot employee who'd worked as a flight engineer on the same aircraft type. He, in turn, gave her the aircraft technical manuals -- a real breakthrough.
Once she had enough details about the the Tupolev´s cockpit and components, Karmanova began scouring the secondhand market for missing parts.
Surprisingly, many Tu-104 spares can be found throughout Russia and neighboring countries, via the Internet.