And therein lies the potential problem - the lessons learned from Afghanistan and Telic clearly show the utility of a Timmy-sized platform for AT/AAR in time of war, but are these going to be noted?
But, is Mr Brown really going to agree to shell out for a larger aircraft that might be too big in peacetime? And haven't we already pushed enough work to Airbus (A400M) and EADS (Skynet 5) recently? What is Bush demanding of phoney Tone in terms of interoperability (you know - we both have 767s, although yours are a different model, with different engines, different AAR kit and a lower fuel capacity)? And even if we do get the biggest tanker going, we'll spend all our time topping up USN/USMC fighters, rather than our own!!
We should discuss this over a beer some day!
