MQ-8B Fire Scout (Naval)
Earlier this month, at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition at National Harbor, Md., a full scale mock-up of Northrop Grumman’s MQ-8C, the unmanned platform that is to succeed the MQ-8B, was on show. Built around the Bell 407 helicopter, the MQ-8C is different from the MQ-8B which was originally modelled around the Schweizer 333 platform.
Director – Business Development, Tactical Unmanned Systems Michael Furqua said, “This is the rotary wing UAV of the future. It will have 14 hours endurance and triple the payload of the MQ-8B weighing 600 lbs.” The MQ-8B has an endurance of around eight hours with a 170-lb payload.
Currently, the US Navy operates 28 MQ-8Bs. Since May 2011, these Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have served in Afghanistan, Libya and in Africa with AFRICOM (US Africa Command) for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations with daily operations sometimes reaching up to 17 hours. Deployments have reportedly exceeded 500 flight hours and by the end of March 2013, the whole fleet had exceeded 8,000 flight hours.
Although there has been widespread international interest in the MQ-8B/C program, international export is restricted by the Missile Technology Control Agreement (MTCA), under which UAS are classified.
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