Draft:Sea Sultan

The Sea Sultan is a maritime patrol aircraft developed by the Pakistan Navy, in response to its Long-Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft (LRMPA) project. The Sea Sultans are based on Embraer Lineage 1000 frame and intended to replace the aging P-3C fleet of the Pakistan Naval Air Arm.

Development
Pakistan had previously acquired P-3C and P-3B aircraft from the United States. Despite other acquisitions, the P-3s retained an advantage of range, payload and endurance over other aircraft in the Pakistan Navy Air Arm. The Sea Sultans are intended to match those advantages, and eventually replace the P-3s.

The Pakistan (PN) announced its LRMPA project as early as 2018, and was open to acquiring it from any country including the United States. However, by 2020 the PN had taken ownership of the project. One reason for this is speculated that the PN could have considered the Saab's Swordfish MPA, but Saab discontinued the Swordfish in November 2018.

On January 10, 2020, the Pakistan Navy released a tender for an aircraft to use as a platform for the LRMPA project with the following specifications: The PN specified that the aircraft should be capable of being modified for the following missions: Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and airborne early warning. The tender also specified that the aircraft's "major components" (engines, flight control system, flight navigation, landing gears etc) be free of American ITAR restrictions.