StbdD, you are indeed showing your complete ignorance of force extension operations.
When a tanker trails receivers, the tanker captain is the formation leader. Period. This is particularly true when a cell of tankers leads a number of receivers.
For example, on Night 1 of GW1, the lead tanker captain of the 3 x VC10K and 8 x Tornado formation was the formation leader until the cast-off point. That's the way it still is.
May I recommend ATP-56A, UK AARNIs and ATP-56B draft for some light bedtime reading. Which, in your case, is probably at around 1900?
"There are those in the arena and those that really need to shut up." - quite so, so why don't you follow your own advice and do so?