Air Tanker – For Hire
Air Tanker are progressing bringing the RAF's Voyagers into service and as can be sen from the images below have also offloaded fuel to French Rafale and US Navy F18's…
Just Thomas Cook It
The RAF's A330 Voyager airborne refuelling and transport aircraft, as we all know, are not owned by the RAF but instead provided by the Airtanker Consortium comprising Babcock, Cobham, Airbus Group,…
RAF Tristar Out of Service
After 30 years of service the Tristar is now out of service with the RAF http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty9W3JBFY-8 The final sortie was on the 24th of March and 216 Squadron disbanded. The…
VC10 Swansong
As the meritous, 50 year, service of the RAF VC-10 draws to a close, the last two aircraft (ZA147 and ZA150) will conduct their final air-to-air refuelling sortie, then diverge…
Getting Out of FSTA
Perhaps no other Private Finance Initiative has been as controversial as the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) PFI. While the PFI model can make sense in some areas, providing such…
On that FSTA RAF Voyager Exclusivity Thing
I have covered the Future Strategic Tanker programme several times (the main one being here) on Think Defence including the oft held assertion that Air Tanker have some sort of…
Hub and Spoke
We were discussing earlier this week the UK's capacity to move personnel in and out ouf Afghanistan, whether the hub and spoke arrangement currently used with a mixture of RAF aircraft…
The Pros and 7 Cons of an RAF Voyager
Announced this week was the official naming ceremony of the RAF's newest and largest aircraft, the Voyager On the 15th of July the MoD wrote The RAF's largest ever aircraft…