Beagle, sorry chap, but your disdain of the EGPWS "robot" and faith in "navigators" is woefully misplaced. The FAA mandated Terrain Awareness and Alerting Systems (TAWS) in 1997 following a crash (admittedly, of a 2 man flightdecked aircraft) in Columbia. Since than, there have been no CFIT accidents involving aircraft fitted with TAWS. None. How many 3 or 4 man flightdecked aircraft have bimbled into mountains in the mean time? I can't say for sure, but I bet it's more than none! Even a great navigator (and all things are relative here) can have bad days, "robots" do not (at least not with a greater likelyhood of 10 to the -6.)
The VC10 has no FDR, no CVR and an escape slide system that would give today's certification authorites a heart attack. It does not meet modern certification requirements and should not be flying pax around just because it happens to be a state aircraft. All this is aside from it's airworthiness from an engineering standpoint.
Just a personal opinion though.