Always wondered, if you can put an RB211 under a deathstar's wing, then what's this argument about 'you can't put pods on, supercritical wing etc'?
I may be too young to remember the good old days of British Engineering, Vickers Corporation, English Electric et al, but surely what we need is some sort of procurement plan that is written by specialists in contract law with an advisory group of AAR operators (and, possibly, some engineering and supply specialists).
Fair enough, we may have to buy from used plane dealers, but enough of this PFI nonsense. The actual act of converting a suitable airframe to the tanker role can't be that difficult, it's been done enough before. So use the advisory group to research the suitable frame (sounds like BEagle's already done that), establish the size of fleet that represents the requirement, OK 800 to keep up with the Spams is too many, but about 30 should suffice. Get rid of the Tri* K variant and all the VC10s; the Tri* Cs may still have a role for - perhaps as strategic personnel movement while the C17s carry the equipment (hub and spoke, A4FLA00M + C130J for the spokes). Then BUY the jets - but only AFTER the corporate lawyers have been through the contract WITH the AAR advisory group (and eng and supply). That way, the operators shouldn't be disappointed at the end user product and a sensible spares procurement and servicing policy can be established.
NB, when I say AAR operators, engineering and supply specialists I do not mean specialists at pushing paper around and operators of the Command coffee machine, I mean people who actually use the product and know the pros and cons intimately.
I believe the rules are that the requirement drives the budget, and not the budget drives the requirement?