That sounds very, very optimistic.
Not really:
BZZ-MCT (as is now) ~ 7:30 to 8:00
BZZ-AKT ~ 4:30
AKT-MCT ~ 4:00 (if used)
MCT-KDH ~ 2:00 (4:00 for round-trip fuel to MCT)
Some approximate speculation from C17 & VC10 figures (Tri* mates...help me out here!!
):
In fuel terms, you're now around 3:30 lighter. An hourly burn of 8 tons (accurate figures, anyone?) would give a 28 ton saving in max wt.
I don't think that that's overly optimistic.
As for the charters, all to do with £££s and risk assesment (charters with DAS?) is my best guess.
Uncle G
EDIT: MGD, your figures give a Specific Gravity of 69%....usually F-34 would be 77.5%-84% under ISA conditions(i.e. ~8t/hr). It's not about the total time for the full journey, but lowering the individual leg times as far as practicable to allow the fuel/load trade-off. Of course, unless you know the exact routings and combination of flag-stops then it's all just speculation
, but i can see how this could work...let's wait for the trial to see. Hopefully the results will become available.