Navy continues effort to extend range of helicopter UAVs; asks Northrop Grumman to build five MQ-8C Fire Scouts

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designers at Northrop Grumman Corp. will build five long-range unmanned helicopters for operation from destroyers and other surface warships under terms of a $43.8 million U.S. Navy contract announced this past week.

Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are asking the Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems segment in San Diego to build five MQ-8C Fire Scout vertical take-off and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (VTUAV), which are based on the manned Bell 407 helicopter from Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas.

The manned version of the Bell 407 seats seven, can carry a useful load of 2,347 pounds, flies as fast as 140 knots, and has a range of 324 nautical miles.

The MQ-8B is limited to operating for only eight to 12 hours per day of ISR coverage at a range of only 100 nautical miles, Navy officials say. To meet the longer-range requirements, Northrop Grumman experts will use the avionics developed for the MQ-8B, as well as the software and ground-control systems, on the longer-range MQ-8C based on the Bell 407.

The MQ-8C will provide the Navy with an increased range of more than 30 percent, twice the endurance, and an increased payload capacity over the existing MQ-8B variant, Northrop Grumman officials say. The unmanned systems architecture developed for the MQ-8B is re-used in the Bell 407.

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