That is where Military Operating Standards (MOS) come in, for they enable the commander to quantify the degree of risk and weigh it against the mission priority. With the single runway at Ascension and the multiple movements required to mount the Black Buck sorties the risk management process would have been applied to the fuel reserves required by recovering aircraft. I do not know what those figures were, or even if they differed from the normal ones, but suffice to say if the Vulcan had ended up in the water halfway back from Port Stanley and the sea around Ascension littered with half the AAR force then the mission would probably not have been judged a success!
exmpa
What also made it difficult was the fact that most of the Victors were limited to 110,000 lb instead of the usual 126,000 lb. This was due to certain wing fatigue issues at the time.
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