Start with "we have no money"
Was around when the mighty Tri motor came into service, it was the cure to all ills. 3 point tanker,bigger, faster,less crew,longer life blah blah. This relied on a slight redesign of the wings by the Design Auth of sorting the refuelling pods. Jacko why did you have to ask who did the spannering? Now the crew room experts of the time will quote all the buzzwords already mentioned but they also invented "supercritical" ( wing not the proles!) and it was all far too difficult and expensive.
Beags was obviosly closer to the argument than me, but it was all a bit of a let down. We struggled on and removed all the gucci in-flight passenger luxuries and recruited a bunch of hitler youth to work down t'back who are trained to look sullen for long periods. Leaving us with a very big single point petrol station.
Whether or not we get our hands on a decent machine will not really affect the price of fish. Nothing suprises me anymore.
We have no money.