The original Mk3s came fully plumbed/bolted for AAR - IIRC we just didn't buy the probes, but would have when they were needed. Thanks to the short sighted nature of the FSTA contract (who honestly believed we'd never AAR helicopters?) we don't have a suitable "donor" platform. All things are, however, negotiable. CHF are also running around telling everyone that they will be bolting probes back on the Merlin (in order, no doubt, to let it lift off the QEC with a decent payload but no gas to tank while airborne….) without an organic tanker. If an agreement was reached with Air Tanker that a handful of SF configured C130s could tank RW only (for a suitable sum, naturally….) then we would be in business. Or, we simply borrow a C130 tanker from the USAF, USMC, Italians, French or Germans.
These frames will be the "pump primer" for a whole fleet recapitalisation. "What?" I hear you say, "Didn't we do that 8 years ago with JULIUS?". Errr, yes and no. Julius was never supposed to be a fleet fit, but the interests of a certain User community and a "use it or lose it" attitude to the Chinook CSP money at the time, forced the UK down a fleet-wide dead end due to the obsolescent centre panel instruments. We had designs to "digitise" the whole cockpit, but it was deemed "unaffordable", as were several pan-DLoD solutions. The purchase of the Gs gets the UK a world class capability, and clears a lot of the clearance/airworthiness hurdles for a fleet coherence project around the CH-47F Block 2. However, the current UK SH Chinook is a lot more mission capable than a US Army "Vanilla" F model. Those responsible for this work need to ensure in the pursuit of whole-life cost savings they don't seriously undermine what SH can do today, and let the User community know what they might be giving up capability wise to get a pretty cockpit and a flight director.
My guess is that 16 "lot 1" airframes will be retired and, in Tornado vernacular, RTP'd, as these Gs arrive. Hopefully, that will release ZA718 to her rightful permanent home at Hendon. I reckon we'll then buy 24 new build F Block 2s and, again, RTP the remaining lot 1 and 2 airframes. I would assume that the relatively new 14 Mk6s (CH-47F airframes) will simply have a refresh to bring them to the common Block 2 standard. That just leaves the 8 Mk5s - toss a coin whether you bin them as a savings option, update to the new baseline or buy an additional 8 frames to keep the fleet at the 60 aircraft mark.