Fire Scout team takes steps to arm unmanned helicopter

NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — A team at nearby Webster Field Annex is working briskly to support an urgent Navy request to weaponize the MQ-8B Fire Scout, marking the first time the Navy will arm an unmanned aircraft. The Fire Scout team and NAVAIR’s structures rotary-wing division personnel conducted the first of a series of tests March 7 on the newly installed hardware, which will gauge how the system will operate in the shipboard environment. “This is the very first weaponization program on this aircraft,” said Jeremy Moore, Fire Scout weapons system integration lead. Part of the Rapid Deployment Capability (RDC) acquisition process, “it was identified by the fleet as an urgent need for joint forces, so we are pressing forward as hard as we can to get it out there.” The Navy plans to arm the MQ-8B Fire Scout with a laser-guided rocket, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS), in just 18 months. Typically, this type of development would take two to three years at a minimum, Moore said. Arming the Fire Scout with a guided rocket will enable the fleet to engage hostile threats with the Fire Scout independent of air support from carrier […]
Fire Scout team takes steps to arm unmanned helicopter