Albert and Kilogrammes
I am sorry to be the debunker of some good conspiracy theories but the Movers had nothing whatsoever to do with Albert adopting metric weights. I was ATAAR Pol2 in MoD between June '93 and January '97. You may recall that this was the period of 'real' corporate and government enthusiasm for all things metric and only shortly before it became illegal for traders to sell in lbs.
At the time all the real tanker aircraft VC10 and Tristar K1 & KC1, used metric weights whilst Albert (including the tankers) and the passenger VC10s used imperial weights (lbs). There had already been a load of pallets transferred from a KC1 to Albert in which the unit of weight was not shown and what was loaded as weighing in lbs was in fact Kgs. However, that was not a direct driver of the change, just an additional justification.
Towards the end of my time in MoD both the VC10 and Albert support authorities were planning to instal new fuel gauging systems in the aircraft as the old ones were obsolete and becoming increasingly unsupportable. We (MoD) took the view that there was no point in avoiding the issue and then subsequently being ordered to convert later which very much seemed to be the way things were moving. We, therefore, decided to make the change with the fuel gauges.
The consensus then was that a big bang change would, in reality, be best and out of that idea came the metric fuel quantity stickers supposedly to complete the transfer overnight.
The only demurrals we had at the planning stage was from the AD trials and clearances team at A&AEE (Boscombe Down) who said it would be all too difficult to calculate the new weights. To force them our way I went through the AD RTS, converting every figure and then listing them giving chapter and paragraph reference, weight in lbs, weight in Kgs (to 4 decimal places) and suggested operating weight in (reasonably) round figures. Thank you very much they said and the rest was history.
Some time not very much later ATAAR earned its only ever brownie points from ACAS when being compared with the other forces, especially FJ. the edict had gone out to start the planning to change all aircraft weights to Kgs but most were dragging their feet and reporting no progress. ACAS was heard to says etching along the lines of look at the truckies who are just getting on and doing it.
At this stage, I can say I am sorry but I was hoist by my own petard as I briefly came back as a Reservist and had to learn all the new figures myself.