Razor you are quite correct. I was referring to the wider flexibility FSTA not just a single sortie, I didn't want to end up writing an essay in my last post though.
In my experience large aircraft rarely require fuel on an ad-hoc basis and it has been decided well before the sortie, the basket would only need fitting for those trips. The basket would only need to be fitted to one or two aircraft at a time, this would give flexibility to the rest of the fleet on Coalition Ops/Exercises (Afghanistan 2001, Flag etc.) and give us options for C17, E-3D.