The name is Schiebel and the S-100 has a VNE of 120 knots and normal cruise of 100 Knots.
Endurance figures are from typical mission profiles using time to target area, time on Scene and return to base. You may be interested to know that over 100,000 hours have now been flown and many of those are land based operations.
The Scheibel website says 120 Kts with a VNE of 130 but also that the max endurance speed is 55 Kts.
I'm sure it is a proven platform for many applications but I come back to the question of how it will be used in the UKSAR role overland or over water. It seems that they are using it at Caernavon as 'overwatch' to provide more info to the CG - sounds a bit 'long-handled screwdriver' to me, SAR crews are more than capable of giving the CG all the info they need - or they could just add a downlink to the helicopters capability.
I would be interested in the crews feedback since having to worry about another air vehicle when you are working hard in poor weather or at night trying to find the casualty just sounds hazardous.
One of the reasons TDAs were established around SAROps was to keep other aircraft away and now the CG wants to put one of its own in there. Hmmm - just let the crews do their job.
There doesn't seem to be an answer to my question about having to take another SAR asset away from its search to investigate anything the UAV finds (or thinks it has found).
I know I am fighting the inevitable - again - but any success of the UAVs will be used to drive down the use of helicopters to save money and create a false illusion of safety for the land and seas of the UK. If that is what you want then crack on.