So obviously your talking P8, care to explain how this is better than a MRA4 ?
Because Boeing are going to build at least 117 of the things, which is going to make them considerably more supportable into the future compared with the sole-customer buy of 9 aircraft we ended up with on MRA4.
The fact that the MRA4 might have been more capable than the P8 is neither here nor there. With the money we have available, a decent number of the 80% solution beats an inadequate number of the 100% solution every time. That is something we are going to have to get used to across defence.