I have not dealt with the program in a few years. But when I last did, they were having problems with certain functions that kind of justified buying the aircraft and were supposed to compensate for lesser performance in other ways. This requires more development work and ET&E.
For example, endurance requirements could be lowered because the sensor requirements should reduce search times. And then there are functionalities like CARP for release of SAR payloads and personnel within a given CEP. If these functions don't achieve the required performance, the impact of lower airframe performance is much higher.
Good to hear! Thank you for clarifying!
