Now they could go to the effort of smelting down all the metal and rebuilding it again but why bother if the structure is sound? It reduces cost and carbon footprint!
So its ok to do this for the complete airframe of the Rivet Joint, an older airframe time wise, but not a Nimrod MRA4 fuselage (which was almost the only bit that was not brand new build and was also structurally sound), oh the irony of that quoted comment above.
So not only are these going to cost more than quoted when Air Publications, GSE, DO support, training, spares and hangar builds/alterations are added to the cost of the airframes, oh and don't forget the MOD goalpost moving which will add to the cost and will probably be late, so where's the money coming from post SDRS if they are cutting back and decimating the armed forces when the country and the MOD is apparently broke.