Hi Jacko, when you say commonality with FSTA do you mean buy A330 or just that it would be an Airbus?
For your point 1 I was advocating a manned solution, not UAV and agree with your point.
I have no idea of the E3D out of service date but I'd guess 15ish years, I believe we have more than we need, so for the next 15 years it would make sense to convert a couple. This would also allow us to purchase new in 15 years time when the US have brought in new platforms, we can learn from their mistakes etc. maybe even purchase similar platforms for improved coalition integration.
I didn't say cut down size of the fleet, but purchase an intermediate size platform for situations where all capabilities are not required, hopefully this would actually increase the availability.
I enjoy reading your post, and it is good to see different points of view, but you do tend to have your favourite list of kit and refuse to accept that anything else is useful, I liked having Challenger looking after me in Iraq, Jack is desperate for modern AD ships, Typhoon is coming along nicely by the sound of things and Trident does more for UK interest than the rest of the Forces put together. Do you know what future conflicts we may be involved in? Yes Iraq and Afghanistan are on going but we can not ignore emerging threats, there is more to UK defence than the light blue.