cessnapete says:
Tend to agree, this is basically a mature airliner with thousands of hours airline service. Hanging a couple of pods under the wings can make little change to aerodynamics and presumably the manufacturer will have all the performance figures from the months of testing carried out at Seville by Airbus.
The similar Australian A330 figures are also available.
Can't see why six + more months required at Boscombe to get it into service.
Crew training doesnt take long these days and there is already an A330 Tanker sim up and running.
(With u/s TriStars littered around the routes at the moment and ongoing maintenance issues, the A330 can't be in service soon enough!!)
There is a lot more to testing of aircraft than just the aerodynamics. Firstly there is the integration of the refuelling equipment (which is more than just a couple of pods), and associated testing of the equipemnt both on the ground, and in the air. The aircraft will also no doubt have some sort of military equipment that does not feature on a normal airliner, e.g. air to air TACAN and Defensive Aids. Finally there is the not inconsiderable work required to test the AAR in the air with different aircraft types to assess the best refuelling envelopes, and also the testing if the Voyager itself as a receiver. Then there are the EMC (Electromagnatic Compatability) issues, as the EMC environment for a military aircraft is less benign than that for a civil aircraft. The list goes on.