14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the Northrop Grumman Corporation announced on Thursday, February 13, that the second test article of the MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter has been completed and successfully flight-tested at a facility in California. This achievement brings adoption of the unmanned aerial system by government agencies and services closer to reality.
The Fire Scout is an unmanned helicopter capable of making its own decisions and of analyzing ground and air characteristics and targets in mid-air. It can be used for either military applications such as surveillance, target acquisition and espionage, or civilian applications, including fighting wildfires, searching for avalanche and flood victims, and so on.
The UAS is being primarily developed for the US Navy. The recent tests, conducted at the Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu, California, were meant as dress rehearsals ahead of the first ship-based test flights, to take place this summer. The data Northrop engineers collected during the recent flight of the second MQ-8C will allow them to move faster in their development efforts.
“The addition of the second MQ-8C means we can begin testing on more components and equipment needed to operate the system as an intelligence-gathering platform. This includes installing and conducting tests on the full sensor suite,” said the Vice President for medium range tactical systems at Northrop, George Vardoulakis.