The MQ-8C Fire Scout completed a three week operational assessment period Nov. 20 at Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu, California.
The OA included 11 flights totaling 83.4 flight hours where Fire Scout was tested against maritime and surveyed land targets to assess system performance, endurance and reliability of the unmanned helicopter.
“MQ-8C is meeting or exceeding its performance objectives and will deliver greater warfighting capabilities to the fleet in the future,” said Capt Jeff Dodge, Fire Scout’s program manager for Multi-Mission Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.
The MQ-8C will provide twice the endurance and three times the payload as the existing MQ-8B. It has a range of 150 nautical miles and a payload capacity of more than 700 pounds which provides unique situational awareness and precision target support for the Navy on land and at-sea with its multiple intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.
Fire Scout makes it look easy to take off from a destroyer. It’s not.
In video released today (above), the MQ-8C helicopter takes off from the destroyer Jason Dunham with its eyes closed — or rather with its cockpit windows painted over, because there’s nobody inside. Though derived from the widespread Bell 407, the Northrop Grumman MQ-8C is a drone. This month’s tests are the first time the unmanned helicopter has taken off from a Navy ship at sea, and the first time any unmanned helicopter of any kind has taken off from a destroyer. The earlier MQ-8B version of the Fire Scout has already seen service on Navy frigates and Littoral Combat Ships, but the C-model is a much bigger aircraft and the Jason Dunham is a much bigger vessel.
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They get so big, so fast. Once a child-sized helicopter that could just collect reconnaissance imagery, the Navy’s MQ-8 Fire Scout has graduated to a bigger airframe that will also carry a maritime search radar and laser-guided rockets.
The tentative plan is to kick off the competition for the new radar with a formal Request For Proposals in the first quarter of (calendar year) 2015, the program manager told reporters here this morning. While the Navy as already tested a Telephonics radar on the smaller B-model — indeed, a radar-equipped B recently flew off a Coast Guard cutter — the bigger C-model could accommodate a larger and more powerful radar, so the service wants to explore its options, said Capt. Jeff Dodge.
Northrop Grumman has delivered the first of a possible 70 MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopters to the US Navy (USN), the company announced on 3 December.
Based on the Bell 407 helicopter, the aircraft is a larger and more capable version of the Schweizer Aircraft 330-based MQ-8B Fire Scout. The MQ-8C has double the endurance and three times the payload capacity of the B-model, Northrop Grumman said in a statement. The C-model has a range of about 150 n miles and a payload capacity over 317 kg. It is outfitted to conduct ship-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
The company is under contract to build 19 MQ-8Cs, including two test aircraft. The navy's total planned inventory for MQ-8 Fire Scout is 70 air vehicles (which includes 61 production funded and 9 research, development, test, and evaluation funded vehicles). In addition to the 30 MQ-8Bs and 19 MQ-8Cs that have been procured to date, the programme will buy an additional 21 MQ-8C air vehicles. The MQ-8Cs first deployment is currently scheduled for 2016.
The latest version of Navy’s Fire Scout reconnaissance drone is being readied for actual takeoff and landing from the deck of a Navy ship at sea, the company announced following recent test takeoffs and landings using a sloped platform at Naval Base Ventura County at Point Mugu, California.
“The … tests are designed to be as real as it gets to actually operating on a Navy ship,” Capt. Patrick Smith, Fire Scout program manager at Naval Air Systems Command, said in a statement. “The autonomous MQ-8C Fire Scout system is able to precisely track and understand the roll and pitch of the surface which resembles at-sea conditions.”
The same test platform was used previously to test the MQ-8B Fire Scout for ship-based operations. That unmanned aviation system began at-sea testing earlier this year. Northrop Grumman, the Navy’s prime contractor on the MQ-8, said initial ship-based flights of the C-model will take place before year’s end.
The MQ-8C model has flown 219 flights and 287 hours since its first flight nearly one year ago, on Oct. 31.
