Britain’s VC10 Tankers Hit the “Through-Life” End of Through-Life Support
Sep 23, 2013 13:22 UTCLatest updates[?]: Last flight, and article closeout.
As of 2002, the RAF had 19 of its 4-engined VC10 aerial tankers in service. These sleek aircraft with the unusual engine arrangement form the backbone of its aerial tanker fleet, and continued to do so for about another decade until the new Airbus A330 MRTTs began entering service as part of a pathbreaking private-public partnership deal.
VC10s also had an early role in the RAF’s pursuit of a “future contracting for availability” approach across its fleets, which aims to pay for available planes rather than for man-hours and spare parts. In September 2013, the British-designed VC10 fleet reached the end of its contributions to operations and to military contracting, and retired.
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