Value?
Just another example of criticism of a contract that few understand. The AirTanker deal was for a service delivery, with a fairly wide scope, including delivery of aircraft, training, engineering, simulation,etc. All I ever hear is the aircraft was too expensive (contract price divided by aircraft numbers) and that it all could have been done better by the military. Remember there was NO money yet an urgent need - therefore you get a PFI for a complete service delivered reasonably efficiently. Alternative was no change. Old aircraft costing a fortune to run and increasingly difficult to support.