 She continually suffered mechanical breakdowns, including problems with her turbine, and the lack of spare parts forced the Coast Guard to extend her period of evaluation from 12 months to 16 months.Her crew spent more of their time attempting to repair her rather than patrolling and one officer likened her operation to that of an aircraft, requiring frequent maintenance; The difference being that an aircraft has a flight crew to operate the aircraft and a maintenance crew for its upkeep.The crew of "Flagstaff", however, had to do both, and were "overwhelmed with the maintenance workload," and their morale consequently suffered.