The UK has a spectacular track record of asking questions that can only be answered with 'political gerrymandering'. 'What sits between a C130J and C-17?' Easy, nothing that makes any operational or operating sense - but Blair wanted to burnish his EU credentials so we got lumped with the A400M as a very expensive (and seemingly unreliable?) 'Super Medium' or 'Light Heavy' airlifter. At least the evidence on C17 capability was so overwhelming that we simply had to keep it - likely through the gritted teeth of europhiles. Another good one is 'What sits between a Puma/Sea King and a Chinook?'. Again, nobody else bothers with this stupid question; you either don't buy Chinook and have a mixed fleet of mediums/super mediums or you buy Chinook and a 'proper' medium. The UK? Nah - let's have 20-odd of those Merlins. More expensive to buy/fly than a Chinook, between 30-50% of the capability (depending what you're moving and where…) and barely any tangible benefit over an uprated Puma 2 - in a far bigger and costlier airframe. But, the Garage Door manufacturers in Somerset needed to be kept in business nailing together aircraft so 'have that RAF!' and ignore all that OA/Staff work and inter-service agreement that the answer was 'more Chinooks'. An extra 20-30 Chinooks would have been pretty handy in Afghanistan….For UK PLC, post C130J retirement, we will have nothing between a CH-47 and A400M with the exception of a few shiny Falcon biz jets. That's a huge capability hole, and one entirely of our own political making. Surely, if this truly is our '1938 moment', and if we're asking questions about a 'war reserve' of T1 Typhoons, at least looking at extending Albert back to 2035 is a sensible hedge? Somebody tell me that the handful of Desk Officers in AIR not looking for the latest woke bandwagon to leap on to appease the Star Chamber are pulling together an Option as we speak to extend the C130?