dragartist,
as you rightly say the Herc tanker fit was the best solution in the time available. It demonstrated what could be done in the hour of need. Yes it was a bit of a ' parts bin lash up' but it soldiered on well until the mid nineties. Our biggest problem as operators of the Herc tanker was the Marham tanker mafia who found it difficult to understand that Herc tanking was in many ways very different to Victor tanking. The a/c could and did so many things the Victor could not- and vice versa. I do not recall ever seeing anyone from the Marham Tanker Staneval on one of our a/c. Given that one of their many edicts was that we were all to be sat down and strapped in whilst dispensing fuel (impossible for the ALM and Nav) I have no doubt that if one did fly with us he may have thought us 'gash'. There were many other items I will not bore you with. But it is also oft forgotten that the standard 'prodding' training in the early days that a captain would receive would consist of a few dry prods and then it was off to do it for real. No pressure then.