Just to be pedantic and a real pain in the @rse, the SHAR wasnt going to get JTIDS. Just like the Mk7 SK didnt get JTIDS. It got MIDS, first off the Spam production line as I recall, and the ASaC fleet got the same type of terminals that were going to go into the FA2. So it really is MIDS L16 not JTIDS L16, but because we have had the Class 2 (JTIDS) terminal around the UK bazaars for so long now everyone just refers to it as JTIDS. Really annoys me sometimes, because when sprouted by some so called expert it really calls their credibility into question.
JTIDS or MIDS is just a hardware term. L16 is the software term.
Oggin Aviator, the VC10K was originally scheduled to get a full-up integrated JTIDS fit and I did quite a lot of work on it with industry. But the beancounters binned it. Then along came yet another of Trust-me-Tone's come-as-you-are-I'm-having-a-war things and muggins here wrote a UOR to get a more austere version fitted to VC10K and TriStar. It was accepted; I then spent most of summer 2000 geting it sorted and did the first flight test as captain with the Boscombe lot. It worked as advertised and was soon operational. But that indolent bunch of back-sliding chair-polishers at Wyton wouldn't fund it after Kosovo, so it nearly died until Bliar had another Bush bum-licking war. Then back it came, thanks yet again to AeI.
The SA provided by friendly PPLIs was good - and when the AWACS lot could be bothered to put other stuff on the net, the SRAP was even better!
And the thanks from the MoD-box for all this?
As I recall, the first working tanker fit was a ground terminal put into an air platform with some "interesting" results, but which proved its worth in the Kosovo thingy.
Pulling the funding from the tanker kit was an absolute disgrace when the pivotal role of such aircraft in network maintenance and relay is considered.
Ironically, the spare terminals from the SHAR went into a variety of platforms including surface platforms causing similar "interesting" results in reverse in the runup to Dubya's desert outing.