A brilliant photo, WH904. The old buddy refuelling thing was such a great capability. I presume it meant that you could do the trail from the UK to Cyprus without tanker support. Just take it in turns to refuel each other all the way there. Excellent!
Haha CM. But not as funny as you might think.
Years ago at the time of entry into service of the Fin, a Bucc tanker did accompany a Tonka from UK to Akrotiri for an FRA, and then RTB. Other tankers were involved, and the Bucc did the tactical tanking in and out, but was not to appear in Cyprus airspace!!
The Bucc crew naturally asked, "why don't we do the attack as well?"
Just like politics - was all for show, but perhaps showed what the oil useage rate was over 10 hours!