PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - New Tankers for RAF
View Single Post
Old 26th Jan 2004, 22:10
  #24 (permalink)  
BEagle
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 26,847
Received 319 Likes on 115 Posts
Ah - see what you mean now.

A310 MRTT: CF and GAF
A330 MRTT: RAF
A310 Transports: CF, FAF, GAF and Spanish AF.

Known potential A330 MRTT cutomers: FAF and RAAF......and even, possibly, the USAF?

Art Field, my commiserations to Keith A-J, John B et al. at TTSC. But I do think that on a strictly platform v. platform playing field and ignoring politics, the A330's extra capability must have had some bearing on the decision. Not fitting the extended centre tanks or an AR probe to the 767 and limiting it to 73.5 tonnes was a bit of a mistake.

Regarding the number of A330s available to the RAF, you are undoubtedly correct. HM will need to have some skilful contracts in place to augment the number every time the sate of tension increases. But perhaps the demand for civil airline seats is inversely proportional to the state of tension in any case?

I wonder what'll happen to the bmi Malvinas trooping contract once the PFI negotiations are concluded, assuming that AirTanker does get the ultimate PFI go-ahead.....? A quick paint job, I would bet!
BEagle is offline