Quite how anyone could have thought that those ex-RAF TriStars would ever fly again, yet alone as 3-point tankers given that they'd never done so before, is frankly astonishing.
As for Marshall and the TriStar? Remember the ZD949 scandal:
October 2006 - Marshall Aerospace is awarded a £22M contract to upgrade the RAF TriStars' avionics and FMS including a 'glass cockpit' as the 'MMR upgrade'. This should have been a relatively low-risk programme as it used elements of the C-130 cockpit upgrade already underway for the RNAF.
November 2007 - ZD949 arrives at Cambridge for the trial installation with a planned completion date of Q3 2008 at which time the second TriStar would begin conversion.
2008 came and went.
2009 came and went.
January 2010 - ZD949 finally makes its first flight with the MMR upgrade.
October 2010 - SDSR indicates that the TriStar will start to leave RAF service in 2013; TriStar MMR programme is to be discontinued.
December 2010 - After 100 hours of flight test, ZD949 finally passes MoD review and is due to be back in service in Spring 2011.
2011 - Due to the change in out-of-service date now planned for the TriStar and with the A330MRTT due in service by the end of the year, ZD949 remains at Cambridge in a pristine state under 'storage' and is to be 'reduced to spares' - a euphemism for being scrapped - as it would be too expensive to convert it back to its original state.
October 2011 - A330MRTT now 'Voyager' fails to meet release to service date; now expected to be 'sometime in January 2012'.
January 2012 - Voyager still not in service.
February 2012 - Voyager still not in service.
March 2013 - Voyager still not providing an AAR service; 3 x VC10 have to stagger on until Sep 2013.
September 2013 - VC10 retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.
March 2014 - TriStar retired, but Voyager still not providing a complete AAR service.
May 2014 - ZD949 finally scrapped having never been returned to RAF service during a wasteful, expensive 7 year programme.