another background factor is likely to have been that the reduction by half of the Air Transport Force was very much in play then
Indeed, ICM, that was when they retired the Belfast. I was the last Flt Cdr Ops on 53, and I was on the last Belfast task on 12 Sep 1976. We all thought if they were gong to get rid of anything, it should have been the VC10 - after all, four good screws is better than a blow job any day....
That was before they thought of making VC10s tankers, of course - they were just airliners then.
airsound