I believe that it nearly wrote the aircraft off.
Correct. I was at Brize at the time and saw the photos of the damage. They weren't even sure whether it was safe to tow the aircraft off the RW.
A chap working in the Windrush Industrial Park in Witney decided that it would be a good idea to stop welding when it began to rain kerosene..
Why did ba bin the TriStars rather than some 747s? The story was that some management suit demanded to see the fuel burn figures for the RR engines which powered both - and found that the TriStar engines had a higher burn rate on similar sectors to those flown by the 747. "That's it then! The TriStar is less efficient and must go!"
So that was decided upon....
Then someone realised that although the engine burn rate might have been higher, there was another teensy-weensy factor which should have been considered.... Namely that the TriStar had 3 engines, whereas the 747 had 4. When the subsequent sums were conducted, it seems that the decision might not have been terribly sound.
At least that's the story which was doing the rounds at Brize at the time!
As for Marshalls antics with ZD949:
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.