NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md.– The Navy’s only rotary wing unmanned aircraft, MQ-8B Fire Scout, returned from a six-month deployment aboard USS McInerney (FFG-8) to Naval Air Station Mayport, Fla. April 15.

The Fire Scout has proven its unprecedented situational awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability while deployed with 4th Fleet to assist in counter-narcotics operations, according to Capt. Tim Dunigan, Fire Scout Program Manager in Patuxent River.

“The major objective of this deployment was to demonstrate to the user community the potential for Fire Scout to provide the tactical commander with near time ISR data and to learn lessons for fielding the aircraft,“ said Dunigan. “Based on reports from the deployment, the Fire Scout will be a huge asset for future operational missions.”

A team from Helicopter Anti-Submarine Light 42 Detachment 7, the Navy Fire Scout Program Office, and Northrop Grumman Corporation operated and maintained the aircraft. The Fire Scout successfully completed 24 flights, which provided the team an opportunity to assess the design robustness of the system in the highly corrosive at-sea environment.

Personnel aboard the McInerney witnessed the Fire Scout’s capabilities first hand when the aircraft assisted in the ship’s first ever drug interdiction. The frigate launched one of its two embarked Fire Scout’s to test different functions and settings when it acquired a suspected narcotics “go-fast” vessel using the aircraft’s Forward Looking Infrared Systems BRITE Star II electro-optical/infrared sensor.

Over the course of three hours, Fire Scout monitored the go-fast with McInerney. With its state-of-the-art optics and extremely small profile, Fire Scout was able to maintain an unprecedented covert posture while feeding real-time video back to McInerney. McInerney and US Coast Guard personnel seized approximately 60 kilos of cocaine and caused the suspected traffickers to jettison another approximately 200 kilos of narcotics.

“The success of the deployment is greatly attributed to personnel aboard the McInerney, some of whom deployed voluntarily, said Dunigan. “Their respective commands recognized the importance of their contribution to the development of this system and the immediate impact it would have on the warfighter.”

The Fire Scout, managed by Multi-Mission Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System program office (PMA-266), is in the final stage of System Development and Demonstration, maturing for the final push toward operational testing in early fiscal year 2011.

Source: NAVAIR