Ah yes, the joys of checking Spey oils during aircrew turn rounds on the F4 with a mirror on a stick and a torch. One side needed the starter door dropping, which usually meant gunk all over your immersion suit if you weren't quick....
Diverted to Valley once and went through this farce; one of our navs happened to be there on APC and asked "Why bother doing that, none of the sqn wheels are around!"....
Re Black Buccs; I understand that a study was undertaken but that there was no way the RAF had enough tankers to support the Bucc, it would run low on oil and failed AAR might well mean a swim in the bracing South Atlantic.
The hush-hush new Tornado GR1 was also looked at - the person entrusted to look at the ODM was seen crying with laughter over its rather pathetic payload/range figures, compared to the Bucc....