National Defence committee  The interviews we conducted were to understand the environment in which these people have to work. On that basis, we were able to sort of synthesize some of the most important ergonomic aspects of this, the ergonomics as a man-machine interface, really, that we're looking at, the human aspects.

National Defence committee  That did not transpire, at least to my knowledge, and it's certainly not reflected in the report.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  We have attempted to deliver this report in a very short time. Given the terms of reference, all requests for information and documents were essentially complied with. I'm not aware that any document that my team requested would have been denied.

National Defence committee  I think we were properly tasked, given our expertise.

National Defence committee  I think in our report we have indicated that there is perhaps a need to define what's called “a statement of operational intent”, a generic document that could be referenced by a statement of operational requirement, which could contain a mix of missions, mission scenarios, and profiles that the aircraft would have to meet.

National Defence committee  I would perhaps give an example of an operation in a mountainous terrain--

National Defence committee  --where there is a need for tight turns and terrain following. That's a very specific requirement on their ability--

National Defence committee  Not necessarily.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  You're asking something that's slightly outside of the report that we provided.

National Defence committee  If I may add, we have indicated in the report that while the SOR alludes to a single fleet, we are advocating consideration of a mixed fleet because certain extremes of the envelope, so to speak, infrequent and very remote accident locations, would favour a very high-cruise aircraft, which would not be required for a majority of Canadian search and rescue incidents.

National Defence committee  I'm quoting off the top of my head. There is a certain suite of sensors that we advocate should be there that would help in search and rescue, that the aircraft be able to operate from unprepared gravel runways, that it be able to operate in icy conditions, and that it have a ramp.

National Defence committee  We have pointed out that the constraint of using only Canadian Forces could preclude the number of possible solutions. That's what we indicated in the report.

National Defence committee  I think we need an aircraft that will deliver the level of service that is within government policy or that's backed up by some stated policy of the government. What that is will depend on other constraints, obviously financial and others, that are outside the scope of our technical review.