Imagine the efforts involved in getting 14 of these worn out old birds in the air. After making one long range flight they will be lucky to get home. The fabulous 14 will quickly reduced to a couple of flyable aircraft. The rest will only be useful for cannibalization, for a while. I can almost feel sorry for their aircrews.
How do you know they are worn out and old?
The Tup plant was cranking them out well into the ‘90s.
Our youngest BUFF is 40-something.
But at least some of them are new than ours. With proper maintenance, they will last until at least 2040.