ANYONE driving west along the A40 from Oxford recently will have seen the yellow signs directing construction traffic to the AirTanker site at RAF Brize Norton.

The signs are good news for Oxfordshire’s economy, confirming that the county is on the receiving end of a share of a massive defence spending project — allocated long before the current financial crisis.

But the signs also spell the beginning of the end for the stately ‘Queen of the Skies’, the VC10 — which, amazingly, has been flying over Oxfordshire on military transport operations for nearly 40 years, as the backbone of the RAF’s air-to-air refuelling.

The first of their replacements, the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FTSA), or A330 -200 AirTanker, is scheduled to arrive at Brize Norton in 2011, and the last in 2016 — when the VC10 will finally retire.

And not before time, either, according to a former station commander at RAF Brize Norton, Air Vice Marshall Keith Filbey, who is now chairman of the consortium introducing the new plane, AirTanker Services.

He said: “The VC10s are corroding and becoming increasingly expensive to maintain.”

The 14 new aircraft, adapted to meet RAF requirements from the A330-200 Airbus, produced in Toulouse, will be capable of carrying 111 tonnes of aviation fuel, and of refuelling other aircraft at up to 35,000 ft.

The new AirTanker’s arrival at Brize Norton is the result of the world’s largest defence Private Finance Initiative (PFI), destined to run for the next 27 years at an estimated £12bn.

Under the contract, the new aircraft will be owned by AirTanker, which will also provide training, maintenance, flight operations, fleet management and ground services.

Air Vice Marshall Filbey said that after moving AirTanker’s HQ from Bristol to Brize Norton last year, the consortium now has 40 Oxfordshire employees and in 18 months will start recruiting more.

He said: “Eventually there will be 500 people working on the FTSA at Brize Norton, of whom 300 will be RAF personnel and the rest civilian.”

Already, pre-1960s RAF amenities at the base, such as bulk diesel and waste fuel tanks, have been updated. But the most noticeable feature will be a new two-bay hangar, a four-storey office block, and a training building with flight simulator.

The Air Vice Marshall would not be drawn on the cost of the work except to say it was “tens of millions” — but there are already 53 people working on the building site, so clearly Oxfordshire’s continuing close relationship with the RAF is an asset to the county’s economy in these troubled times.

And talking of troubled times, might the project be targeted in future Government cutbacks?

Air Vice Marshal Filbey said: “The financial penalties would be huge. Also, the VC10s and Tristars are simply too old and must be replaced.”

Financing the new air-to-air tanker is complicated, though. The company spearheading the project, Airtanker, is jointly owned by EADS, owner of Airbus, maker of the A330-200, with 40 per cent; Dorset-based Cobham, which builds the refuelling equipment (13.3 per cent); Rolls Royce, which provides the engines (20 per cent); Thales UK of Crawley, which provides the mission simulators and defensive aids (13.3 per cent); and VT Group, which supplies information and communications systems (13.3 per cent).

All the conversion work for 12 of the 14 aircraft will be done in the UK. The first two AirTankers will be converted at Airbus military facilities in Madrid.

Like the VC10s and Tristars they replace, the FTSAs will operate as troop carriers, or even as scheduled passenger aircraft (for example to the Falklands) when not engaged in air-to-air missions.

Each plane can carry 300 people or, with medical configuration, up to 40 stretchers — or 28 plus three intensive care units — and 104 pasengers or medical staff.

The planes can also carry 100,000 litres of fuel and dispense it while airborne at 80 litres a second, or fast enough to fill a Mini Cooper tank (40 litres) in just two seconds.

The new air-to-air refuellers will have twice the refuelling capability of the old VC10 and they represent a leap forward in reliability, performance and economy. All the same, some of us might feel just a tinge of nostalgia for those old Queens of the Skies.

But, as a spokesman for AirTanker said, that nostalgia wears thin with servicemen and women when they get stuck in Iraq or Afghanistan waiting days for a delayed flight. At least that scenario ought soon to be a thing of the past.