This is a bug the sim shipped with that was never corrected. My guess is that what is happening is that the tactic creates invisible waypoints where the aircraft is supposed to drop buoys, but that those waypoints are too precise and the aircraft misses them, then ends up circling endlessly trying to fly to those points. It will eventually drop buoys, but it won't be a very neat pattern.
The Helix, however, does drop nice neat rows of buoys when set to the SB search tactic, FYI.
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