For what it is worth none of my routes recovered to UK. There were occasional arguments that the route needed e.g. double drums to have any chance of completion, when only A&E might be available. The fuel at destination was never taken too seriously, we were expecting to depart from bases that would become radioacctive rubble before we got to top of climb, so the concept was somewhat academic. Seldom mentioned was how much fuel might be wasted in survival scramble + hold + political mind changing and then finally go with what you have got. Yes, we would have gone anyway.