Inability to land properly was enough for the U.S. Navy to ground its most important unmanned helicopters. But the “mishaps” weren’t enough to stop Navy commanders from ordering a new-and-improved version of the aircraft.

 

About two weeks ago, the Navy had to stop using its MQ-8B Fire Scout helicopters after one crashed in Afghanistan and another failed to land on the USS Simpson missile frigate. The remaining 14 Fire Scouts were grounded. These troubles followed a Department of Defense audit produced last year that found the Fire Scouts failed to complete 46% of its missions aboard the USS Halyburton. The Navy argues that this figure is misleading because it potentially includes as an “incomplete mission” video dropout of ten minutes during a five-hour mission.

 

The Navy, however, refused to give up on the drone helicopter, and awarded a $262 million contract to Northrop Grumman to produce eight upgraded Fire Scouts using the Bell 407 airframe, apparently for use in Africa.

 

Fire Scouts have been used to locate Latin American drug smugglers, Indian Ocean pirates and Afghan insurgents, and they were used during the Libya civil war last year.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Navy Grounds Drone Copters, Then Spends Quarter-Billion to Buy More (by Spencer Ackerman, Wired)