C130Jbloke
I think one has to differentiate between civilian ops and mil ops- one is governed by State legislation- Air Navigation Order - EUOPS etc. and the other by your RAF rules and SOP's. In the commercial role I can't see you getting away from the civy AOC requirements- and that would include your Ops manuals, SOP's and aircraft maintenance and aircrew requirements. However, it might be that you could establish a procedure whereby you step out of the commerical role and operate to RAF Military SOP's when engaged in the air to air tankering role or for any mil ops for that matter- and I said earlier- EUOPS does not apply to military operations.
However, I can envisage an issue with maintenance, not my area but I suspect that could prove problematic in some areas.
My first instinct is to say the two roles won't mix. The complications of having civilian pilots and military pilots flying together in commercial ops are considerable- unless, your AirTanker RAF pilots are licensed, rated and trained to commercial AOC SOP's standards, and meet all the flight time limitation requirements etc.
Actually, C130Jbloke- the more I think about it, I don't think you can find the answers without the involvment of the AirTanker commercial operations team and the CAA flight ops people. In particular with your plans for the aircrew, both pilots and cabin. So many issues are starting to come to mind, I'd be here all night.
A pal of mine was involved with the BAe bid some years ago so I have some insight into the program, we actually discussed these issue back then- I would have thought that the commercial ops people would have worked this through with the CAA by now. There are always ways and means but, you won't get them yourself without the CAA involved, at least for the commercial side of the operation.
Just had another thought; you might want to think about the insurance implications of this. For example, the procedure of changing from commercial to mil role might need a notification procedure/acknowledgement by them. Don't neglect this one.
Last edited by no sig; 10th Oct 2008 at 20:20.