Your quite right they could cut the kit at waddo although I think the E3 has a Nato committment and would therefore probably dodge the bullet, they won't bin the sentinel as it is serviceable, in service and paid for.
I am not pushing anything but am being quite open in my thinking and just trying to second guess what may happen, not what I want to happen.
It's no secret in the ISTAR community that the powers that be would love a single base, Waddington is central, close to the linguist schools, Wsop training at Cranwell and has no geese at the end of the runway. Perhaps crucially the local government is winnable by the tories in any election whereas Moray is not!
The mushrooms I was refering to are the guys and girls based at Kinloss who like mushrooms are being kept in the dark and fed on **** about the MRA 4.