The removal of serviceable parts from one aircraft for use on another is a routine and temporary measure to ensure that the maximum number of aircraft are available to the front line.
The number of these instances over the last 12 months (January to December 2006 unless otherwise annotated), by donor aircraft, is given in the following table.
Aircraft type Number of cannibalisations C17 49 C130J 1509 C130K 2529 TriStar 165 VC10 77 1 1 November 2005 to 31 October 2006. 2 30 November 2005 to 1 December 2006.