Recruitment has started for the first wave of jobs being created by a £13bn deal to replace Britain's ageing RAF transport and refuelling fleet.

The new jobs have been created by AirTanker, a new company formed by a consortium including Rolls Royce and the VT Group.

They are among an initial 30 to be based at a new office on Ventura Park, Carterton on the doorstep of RAF Brize Norton which will eventually be the base for 500 staff working on a fleet of new Airbus A330 200s which will replace the TriStar and VC-10 aircraft.

Of the 500 jobs, 200 will be newly created by AirTanker for what is the largest private finance deal ever signed in the UK.

Peter Saunders, business director for AirTanker, said: "We have been based in Bristol but we have decided to migrate the business towards Brize Norton so we can integrate into the local community as quickly as possible.

"Over time we will grow to become a much bigger business and we are looking to move into Brize Norton by 2011."

A total of 14 aircraft will be modified at a purpose-built hangar to be constructed at the base which will include a training simulator and maintenance facilities.

Mr Saunders added: "The big news for Carterton is that this is one of a number of companies moving into the Brize area as part of its development."

Negotiations for the 27-year contract which was finally signed in April, took a decade with the assessment costing the taxpayer more than £6m a year.

VC10 and TriStar planes, up to 40 years old, have been struggling to cope with providing in-flight refuelling of fighter jets in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new aircraft will be owned by AirTanker, although they will fly in RAF colours. They have larger tanks for air-to-air refuelling.

AirTanker will move into Ventura Park in October, taking up the whole of the 7,000 sq ft Chapter House building which Mr Saunders said would be renamed Wesley House after the aircraft refuelling pioneer Wesley May.

In 1921, wing walker May climbed between two aeroplanes with a can of fuel strapped to his back and poured it into the tank of the second one.