Originally Posted by
stilton
So the RAF now has what, five large aircraft that are far more suitable for or can only be refuelled by a boom equipped tanker.
What exactly was the point of specifying a different A330 tanker than any other air force ?
I mean it's pretty simple isn't it, if you have a boom and a drogue system you've covered all your bets and can refuel anything with the capacity to do so.
Was it really to save a few pounds ?
Sure you could bolt a probe on the P8 but doesn't a boom provide a far more stable contact and a far higher delivery rate ?
Let me guess they may have even paid extra to delete the boom.
Oh God, here we go again. First there were the dinosaurs.......
In procurement in the late 90s/early 00s Defence was not allowed to buy stuff that provided "interoperability" (fortunately common sense has now prevailed and interoperability needs to be considered). The AAR experts stated a requirement for a boom which would allow interoperability; but we, the UK, at the time did not have a national requirement for a boom; the only aircraft we had that could use a boom were 4 leased C-17s - they were barred from AAR by the terms of the lease - and E-3D - and that was bisexual. No requirement meant no funding and so the boom requirement was deleted from the FSTA requirement. Remember, back then (15-20 years ago) all of the planned "new" aircraft were probe and drogue equipped - A400M, Nimrod MRA4 - and all of those in service were already P&D equipped - E-3, C-130 J & K and Nimrod R1.
This was all of course further complicated by the stupid PFI thing. Even without a boom fitted the fuselage needs strengthening so, for the non-core fleet, an operator would be burning additional fuel to carry around unnecessary extra metal. The simple answer is to blame the then government, who thought that mortgaging the nation's infrastructure, hospitals, military capability etc on PFI was a brilliant plan.
So to answer your questions:
The UK was the first customer for the A330 tanker so we did not order something different from all other air forces.
Yes, absolutely true, but the UK didn't (at the time) have a requirement, even though the operators wanted it.
Yes, but it was millions of pounds - remember Airbus had not developed a viable flying boom at the time.
Highly unlikely that you could just bolt anything on to anything nowadays, let alone a P-8. The costs for doing so would also be tens of £ millions.
No we didn't.