Tanker problem for RAF

The UK MOD has a air-refueling tanker problem. It seems that the hardware involved is having trouble passing gas to RAF Tornados.

I suspect the problem is fixable. More interesting in the article is the lease for 14 converted Airbus A330s for $16.7B (USD).

Leases are in some ways like rentals. It would be interesting to see the terms of the lease in detail.

At first look, acquisition of 14 tankers would be less. However budgets (especially a death-hospice MOD budget environment) are all about what colors of money you can spend at different times.

In that case, I wonder if a civilian contractor could do it better cheaper?

UK air-refuelling requirements are almost all hose-and-drogue. Interesting as I would have thought getting the C-17 and used Rivet Joints would get in the way of all this.

I could be wrong, but as far as I know, the RAF's A330s will not be fitted with a boom system.