The Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout (known as the Fire-X during development) is an unmanned

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

developed by

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

for use by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. The MQ-8C also has autonomous take-off and landing capability. It is designed to provide

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness, often abbreviated as SA is the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes with respect to time or other factors. It is also defined as the perception of the elements in the envi ...

, aerial fire support and precision targeting support for ground, air and sea forces. The MQ-8C airframe is based on the

Bell 407 The Bell 407 is a four-blade, single-engine, civil utility helicopter. A derivative of the Bell 206L-4 LongRanger, the 407 uses the four-blade, soft-in-plane design rotor with composite hub developed for the United States Army's OH-58D Kiowa ...

, while the avionics and other systems are developed from those used on the MQ-8B Fire Scout. It first flew in October 2013$1726.1m remains to be spent on procurement with 96 airframes to be acquired which will all be MQ-8C, the total budget mixes in cheaper MQ-8B's. and achieved initial operational capability on 28 June 2019.MQ-8C Cleared for Operations
''Aviation International News''. 10 July 2019.

Design and development

Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout on display at the 2015 Australian International Airshow

On 3 May 2010, Northrop Grumman announced plans to fly a

helicopter modified with autonomous controls from the MQ-8B. Named Fire-X, it was to demonstrate an unmanned cargo resupply capability to the US Navy. The unmanned Fire-X completed its first flight at

Yuma Proving Ground Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) is a United States Army series of environmentally specific test centers with its Yuma Test Center (YTC) being one of the largest military installations in the world. It is subordinate to the U.S. Army Test and Evalua ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

on 20 December 2010. On 23 April 2012, Northrop Grumman received a $262.3 million contract from the Navy to build the newly designated MQ-8C Fire Scout; the work included two developmental aircraft and six low-rate production aircraft initially. The Navy wants 28 MQ-8Cs for naval special operations forces. In March 2013, the Navy incorporated the Rolls-Royce 250-C47E engine into the MQ-8C for a 5 percent increase in

hot and high In aviation, hot and high is a condition of low air density due to high ambient temperature and high airport elevation. Air density decreases with increasing temperature and altitude. The lower air density reduces the power output from an airc ...

power, 2 percent reduced fuel consumption, 8 percent increase in rated takeoff power, and better reliability. The Bell 407-based MQ-8C has an endurance of 12 hours, a range of , and a payload capacity of about ; it has twice the endurance and three times the payload as the MQ-8B.Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout VTOL UAV completes first ship-based test period with US Navy
- Navyrecognition.com, 23 December 2014 In early July 2013, Northrop Grumman delivered the first MQ-8C to the Navy. Ground testing was done to ensure that the systems worked properly and communicated with the ground control station prior to conducting the first flight. The MQ-8C shares software, avionics, payloads, and ship ancillary equipment with the MQ-8B. The MQ-8C was expected to fly in early October 2013, and be deployed in late 2014. The

APKWS The AGR-20 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is a design conversion of Hydra 70 unguided rockets with a laser guidance kit to turn them into precision-guided munitions (PGMs). APKWS is approximately one-third the cost and one-third th ...

II was to be added to the C-model sometime after 2016,Northrop close to completing Firescout weapon tests
- Flightglobal.com, 14 August 2013Fire Scout ends Afghan mission; future includes new variant, LCS work
- Militarytimes.com, August 16, 2013 but ship integration issues and limited magazine space put the effort on hold, and it was eventually discarded.Navy Declares Unmanned MQ-8C Fire Scout Helicopter Mission Capable
''USNI News''. 9 July 2019. On 24 September 2013, the MQ-8C Fire-X delivered to the Navy turned on its engines for 10 minutes in preparation for first flight. A second MQ-8C was to be delivered on 30 September. First flight was scheduled for early to mid-October, although the exact date was not determined, as such tests are often delayed by minor system problems. The MQ-8C flight test regime is to last six months. The MQ-8C Fire Scout first flew on 31 October 2013. It flew for 7 minutes in restricted airspace using autonomous controls at

Naval Base Ventura County Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) is a United States Navy base in Ventura County, California. Formed by the merger of Naval Air Station Point Mugu, NAS Point Mugu and Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme, CBC Port Hueneme, NBVC is a d ...

. It flew a second time hours later that day to an altitude of 500 ft. The MQ-8C was jointly operated by Northrop Grumman and the Navy. Northrop Grumman delivered the second MQ-8C on 25 November 2013. They are under contract to build 14 helicopters. The second MQ-8C flew on 12 February 2014. The aircraft had flown 66 hours by February 2014. On 10 March 2014, the MQ-8C reached 100 flight hours. 19 C-model Fire Scouts are on order with two in flight testing;Navy orders five more MQ-8Cs
- Flightglobal.com, April 4, 2014. the first deployment on an LCS is scheduled for 2015. The MQ-8C began testing aboard the

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

on 16 December 2014, executing 22 landings and recoveries in less than four hours.Navy to Start Competition for New Fire Scout Radar
- Nationaldefensemagazine.org, 17 December 2014 Testing was completed on 19 December, executing 32 takeoffs and recoveries over three flights. The MQ-8C will be ready to perform surface warfare missions in 2018 and mine countermeasure missions in 2020. The aircraft's first deployment is expected for 2016 to give

Littoral Combat Ship A littoral combat ship (LCS) is either of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for littoral warfare in near-shore operations by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface comba ...

s a -radius ISR capability. Northrop Grumman flew the MQ-8C demonstrator installed with their AN/ZPY-1 STARLite Radar, although there was no requirement for an MQ-8C radar at the time; the Navy began seeking information for a radar for the MQ-8C in July 2014 with surface search,

synthetic aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or 3D reconstruction, three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target regi ...

, inverse SAR, and weather mode capabilities. Although the AN/ZPY-4 has been installed on some B-model Fire Scouts, the larger C-model can accommodate a larger and more powerful radar. The Fire Scout program office investigated whether to equip the airframe itself to perform more missions or focus on manned-unmanned teaming with larger MH-60S/R Seahawk helicopters. On 26 May 2016, NAVAIR signed a contract for the Osprey 30 lightweight AESA radar for the MQ-8C, the first system of its type to offer full spherical coverage with no moving parts; the 360-degree, airborne radar uses fixed panels distributed around the body of aircraft, mounting antennas weighing just over each. The radar is classified as the AN/ZPY-8 and will be retrofitted onto the Navy's MQ-8C's. The first operational MQ-8C was delivered to the US Navy in December 2014. Its final developmental flight was completed on 29 April 2015, after 450 hours completed in 327 flights. In August 2015, Northrop Grumman demonstrated the MQ-8C's endurance with an 11-hour flight. On 20 November 2015, the MQ-8C completed a 3-week operational assessment period to assess system performance, endurance, and reliability of the unmanned helicopter over 83.4 hours in 11 flights. To date, the aircraft logged 730 flight hours over 427 flights. Ship-based testing is expected to begin in 2017. In July 2018, Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 concluded the initial operational test and evaluation of the MQ-8C, conducted aboard the USS ''Coronado''. The MQ-8C was declared mission capable in June 2019. In tandem with a change in focus for the LCS involving increasing the ship's lethality, the MQ-8C's role was changed to focus on providing targeting and surveillance data. While the helicopter could carry 7-tube APKWS guided rocket pods, the LCS only has one weapons magazine used to store all the ship's weapons and didn't provide much space for loading weapons onto the aircraft. Instead of being a weapons platform, the MQ-8C will use its long endurance and radar to provide the LCS with enhanced over-the-horizon targeting capabilities. By January 2023, the U.S. Navy had procured 38 MQ-8Cs. 10 are used for operations while the rest are kept in storage. All are kept on the West Coast operated by Helicopter Sea Combat Squadrons 21 and 23 to support the MCM package of ''Independence''-class LCS.

Retirement

As of May 2024, the Navy will end operational employment of the MQ-8C at the end of FY2024. Sundown will follow at the end of FY2026.

Operators

; *

Specifications

References

External links

MQ-8C Fire Scout page on northropgrumman.com

MQ-8C Fire-X page on northropgrumman.com

Fire Scout page on northropgrumman.com

US Navy MQ-8 Fire Scout page
{{DEFAULTSORT:MQ-08 Fire Scout Unmanned helicopters Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States 2010s United States military reconnaissance aircraft Airborne military robots MQ-008C Fire Scout 2010s United States helicopters

Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout The Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout (known as the Fire-X during development) is an Unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned helicopter developed by Northrop Grumman for use by the United States Navy. The MQ-8C also has autonomous take-off and landing ...