More demos set for nine-lived Fire Scout
A Northrop Grumman UAV — the MQ-8B Fire Scout — refuses to die; it was part of the now-canceled Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, but the system stubbornly hangs on
They say cats have nine lives, but so does Northrop Grumman’s UAV, the MQ-8B Fire Scout. The system is still moving toward an operational U.S.Army career despite the demise of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, where it was to serve as the brigade-level Class IV UAV.
Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman writes that Northrop Grumman is currently operating two Fire Scouts — P-6 and P-7 — which were part of the U.S. Army’s initial batch of aircraft, which have been stored at the company’s Moss Point, Mississippi, facility while the Army has tried to define their role within FCS (in the 2010 budget, there is money to bring four aircraft to the flight test stage). In January-February of 2010, P-7 is due to take part in the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment (AEWE) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The main thrust of Fire Scout’s role in AEWE will be reconnaissance and targeting, but one mission will demonstrate resupply (including delivering an EyeDrive unmanned ground vehicle) and the other will use the UAV to land a QinetiQ/Foster-Miller Dragon Runner UGV. The UAV will then act as a relay, letting a controller miles away use the Dragon Runner to emplace two BAE-designed unattended sensor packages. This apparently complex process allows the sensors to be positioned accurately and unobtrusively.
Both the resupply and UGV missions support Northrop Grumman’s case that a VTOL UAV has unique attributes that justify its greater size compared with a fixed-wing aircraft. “We get compared with Shadow and its upgrades,” says Northrop Grumman Army Fire Scout business development manager Mike Howell, “and that’s valid if you look at a narrow set of missions. But you can’t do resupply.”
Sweetman writes that the company is also working on a package of performance improvements to Fire Scout. Redesigned rotor blades are expected to boost endurance by up to an hour, and the company wants to incorporate the new Rolls-Royce RR500 engine, providing another 70 hp and increasing hot-and-high takeoff weight by 237 lb — equivalent to another 1.8 hours in the air.
