The U.S. Senate appropriations committee has asked the U.S. Army to begin fielding the Fire Scout, its helicopter-like, vertical-takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as early as next year. The Senate committee wrote that U.S. Central Command urgently needs persistent C4ISR to support operations and that the Army should not wait for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) to field the Fire Scout. This is four years ahead of schedule. The original Army plan was to call for development of the aircraft's engine and sensors in anticipation of a 2010 flight test, followed by deployment between 2012 and 2014.

The Fire Scout program began in 1999 as a U.S. Navy program to build an armed, supply-reconnaissance UAV that could land autonomously on an aircraft carrier. Since then it has become central to the FCS. In 2004, the Army began development of the Northrop Grumman UAV, adding electro-optical and infrared sensors with the assistance of Boeing and SAIC, the two FCS lead system integrators.

When flying at its 20,000-foot ceiling, the 9-foot-tall MQ-8B has a 172-mile line of sight. It has stub-like wings and a take-off weight of 3,000 pounds, including up to 600 pounds of weapons and supplies. This UAV is intended for surveillance, to fire weapons and to land on unprepared ground. Its 10.7-megabit-per-second data link can transmit imagery to the mission payload operator. The MQ-8B's weapon racks can carry the Hellfire anti-tank missile; the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon, a laser-guided 2.75-inch folding-fin rocket; and the GBU-44/B Viper Strike, a lightweight, laser-guided variant of Northrop Grumman's 44-pound Brilliant anti-armor munition glide bomb.

Meanwhile, the Navy continues to evaluate the Fire Scout for its own needs. Last year, an earlier model of the Fire Scout, the RQ-8A, performed the first automated landing of a helicopter on a Navy ship. Last December, a set of flight tests were completed at Webster Field Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Md. And this past summer, the Navy tested the MQ-8B with a laser-designator targeting system.

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