Fire Scout UAV is Poised as Sensor, Shooter for Littoral Combat Ship

By RICHARD R. BURGESS
Managing Editor

In late September and early October, two experimental vehicles will come together — probably at the Navy’s test ranges off Southern California — for a series of demonstrations that will comprise a snapshot of the fast, highly automated platforms indicative of what Navy senior officials envision for the 21st century.

The larger of the prototypes is the Swift, a high-speed catamaran with a large flight deck under lease by the Navy for experimental use. It has attracted widespread attention as a fast transport with an operating range of 1,100 miles. In the September demonstrations, however, Swift will have a supporting role as the flight pad for the second vehicle, a small, remotely controlled unmanned aircraft (UAV) being developed for several key missions, including defense of the Navy’s future fleet of Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) from attack by fast-moving ships and small boats.

Called Fire Scout, the aircraft is a version of the Schweizer 333 light helicopter built by Schweizer Aircraft Corp., Horseheads, N.Y., that has been modified by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems for unmanned flight. It soon will be fitted with rockets, possibly laser-guided, to attack other craft that threaten the LCS. It is the latest step by the U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency to arm unmanned planes for specialized tasks.

The Predator UAV armed with Hellfire missiles has been used for a variety of tactical missions, including the November 2002 killing in Marib, Yemen, of six suspected members of the al Qaeda network. The sea services are developing a variety of unmanned planes, including the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle being specially designed for attack missions.

Recently near termination, the Fire Scout now is a Phoenix of sorts with a promising future as a Navy multimission aircraft. In addition, the U.S. Army has selected a version of the Fire Scout for its Future Combat Systems program of combat vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles and UAVs that is at the center of its transformation into a lighter, more mobile force. The Fire Scout also is a component of the United Kingdom’s omnibus Watchkeeper system for intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition.

But Fire Scout’s link to the LCS is responsible for its rather remarkable rise to a potential long-term role with the Navy. The service originally wanted more than 70 Fire Scouts to replace the fixed-wing RQ-2 Pioneer UAV, which has been withdrawn from operational Navy service but remains as the current battlefield surveillance UAV for the Marine Corps. In February 2000, Northrop Grumman received a $93.7 million Navy contract for engineering and manufacturing development. Designated the RQ-8, the Fire Scout received a favorable operational assessment, and in May 2001 Northrop Grumman began initial production of a few aircraft. A few months later, however, the Navy re-evaluated its UAV requirements and withdrew further production funding for the Fire Scout.

But the Fire Scout clung to life as a test-and-demonstration vehicle for UAV technology. As the Navy developed the concept for the LCS fleet in 2003, Fire Scout was resurrected as the vertical takeoff unmanned aircraft for it.

Rick Ludwig, Northrop Grumman’s director of business development for Fire Scout, said the Navy will need three aircraft for each of the 56 ships in the LCS fleet.

Capt. Dennis Sorenson, the Navy’s Fire Scout program manager, however, said the service does not yet know the number of systems it will need. Sorenson estimated Fire Scout likely will become a multibillion dollar program.

The 2004 defense budget contains $36.1 million for continued development, and the Navy’s 2005 budget request includes $42.9 million for two RQ-8B engineering and manufacturing development aircraft, with an option for low-rate initial production of six aircraft. The chief of naval operations has identified $48 million for fiscal year 2005 production of Fire Scout as the Navy’s number 12 unfunded priority, Naval Air Systems Command official Sandy Schroeder said. Operational evaluation of the Fire Scout is scheduled for 2007 and is key to an anticipated decision for full-rate production in 2008, the year initial deployment is scheduled.

Last spring, the Navy bolstered Fire Scout’s future role by adding a requirement that it be armed to defend the Littoral Combat Ship from fast-moving small boats or ships. Weapons demonstrations funded by Northrop Grumman for risk reduction were planned in late April for firing eight 2.75-inch Hydra 70 unguided rockets from an RQ-8. BAE Systems is developing the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, a 2.75-inch rocket fitted with a laser-seeker head. Other weapons being considered are the Low-Cost Guided Imaging Rocket, Viper Strike (a laser-guided precision munition), and Spike, a 5-pound missile being developed at the Naval Air Warfare Center’s Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif.

Fire Scouts armed with guided weapons would be potentially useful in attacking other targets, such as surfaced submarines or enemy concentrations on land. As a demonstration of its operational flexibility, Fire Scout last December was controlled in flight from takeoff through landing by an airborne P-3C maritime patrol aircraft.

Fire Scout is controlled by a mission computer that is programmed before flight to fly a certain route. The aircraft’s flight path can be changed in flight by an operator using manual keyboard entries in the Tactical Control Station; no joystick is required. The directional scan of the sensor turret can be controlled through the TCS as well.

The Navy has not had an operational vertical takeoff unmanned aerial vehicle since the late 1960s, when the QH-50 DASH [drone antisubmarine helicopter] was retired. Flown from destroyers, the QH-50 DASH was fitted with turbine-powered, contra-rotating rotors and guided by radio control from the destroyer. Its only role was to drop a torpedo on submarines. The QH-50 was less than successful and many were lost during operations.

Northrop Grumman officials foresee a more successful future for the Fire Scout, saying its missions could include mine detection, close air support, border patrol and even medical evacuation and rapid delivery of supplies.

“Potentially we would never bring any ordnance back to the carrier,” said Duquette, formerly a navigator aboard the carrier USS Harry S. Truman. The target date for J-UCAS is fiscal 2015.

The Navy’s own vision of how best to put UAVs to work, “and bring the information back reliably, without it being jammed or intercepted, without it being changed by the enemy,” is the Tactical Control System (TCS). Developed by Raytheon Systems Co., TCS is software for the ground control of UAVs, governing a range of capabilities from receipt of imagery to takeoff and landing. It is being purchased solely by the Navy, but theoretically could be made to accommodate other services’ UAVs.

Duquette sees numerous opportunities for joint use of UAVs, not just overseas but in homeland defense, an idea that has powerful backing in Congress.

“If there’s a Navy UAV flying off a Littoral Combat Ship, I ought to be able to directly feed that information to a Coast Guard ship,” he said. “Likewise, [with] a Coast Guard ship flying a UAV, it doesn’t matter what kind of UAV; what really matters is the data.”

While the services are still in the thick of developing a common architecture for UAV command and control, Duquette sees major progress.

“With UAVs, we are where we were with computers in the middle 1980s. We had many different types of computers, many different operating systems. We’re trying to iron them out.” The technology is there for the UAVs the military needs, he said. “The next pieces are the formality of connecting them.

“We’re moving quickly to make those pieces come together. It’s happening, and it’s pretty exciting.”