I don't see why they need cockpit upgrades, it would be a nice to have but can't see why they couldn't be operated as is. It's probably going to be expensive getting them certified for civil use as they have had 30 years worth of mods. Over a year standing outside at Bruntingthorpe in the cold and rain wont have done the electrics any good either, although they have had anti-det runs every month.

When I was in a line of work that sold stuff to, inter alia, the MoD, we doubled our price too. And stopped bothering, after a while, because even with that premium it was still uneconomical to do business with that mob.

We were a small outfit, but I know the same to be true elsewhere for much bigger concerns. I knew a senior manager from one company that made radio equipment who said they baled from a major contract because change orders came in so fast and were so badly thought out it was impossible to get any units through production. Didn't matter how much they charged, they simply couldn't do the job.

Wow, scale that up to a major procurement like a new aircraft and its not hard to see why we end up where we do.

"Tristar, the airfield denial weapon". What a great saying, especially for anyone who's done a FI tour. IIRC 706 was known as Damien.

Aah the 216 Quiz Team at MPA (before everyone else arrived) - always called "If we don't win, we won't fly you home". One week we did, and crept out very quietly with the winnings, under the scowls of the contractors' people