The RAF's latest toy visiting Manchester today

[Tonks]

Well there was a fair amount about it in the press... the contract was cancelled at Bournemouth...

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... in-373306/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... ract-spain

Tonks

[TSR2]

Cheers for that Tonks, must have missed it

[TobyV]

The AirTanker consortium responsible for delivering 14 A330 Voyager tanker transports to the UK Royal Air Force has dropped a major domestic industrial element of the deal to safeguard its delivery schedule for the type.

So to avoid it being late we give it to the mañana, mañana lot? I'm sure they'll get it done on time, once they've had their siesta.

Conventional logic would dictate that if you want something on time, entrust it to the Germans, but they're not doing very well with Brandenburg Airport at the moment:
http://www.berlinstory.de/wp-content/up ... tkarte.jpg

[SkippyBing]

So to avoid it being late we give it to the mañana, mañana lot?

Technically Air Tanker did, it's literally their problem if they can't deliver the required capability on time, how they do that is up to them*. Although if they have to do it by buying the VC-10s from the RAF as they're retired it will be highly amusing.

*This assumes for once MoD managed to right a contract that doesn't see themselves off...