Singapore Airshow 2016: USN set to debut enhanced MQ-8B Fire Scout UAS aboard Littoral Combat Ship

[Zarvan]

The US Navy's MQ-8B Fire Scout made its maiden flight with the AN/ZPY-4(V)1 surveillance radar at NAS Patuxent River's Webster Field Annex, Maryland, on 16 June 2014. Source: Northrop Grumman
Key Points

• The US Navy is set to field an improved MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial system aboard the Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado in June 2016.
• The MQ-8B UAS is equipped with the newly installed Telephonics X-band RDR-1700B+ maritime surveillance radar.

The US Navy (USN) is nearly ready to commence deployment of a radar-equipped Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system (UAS) aboard the Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) from June 2016, an official from Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) told IHS Jane's .

According to Captain Jeffrey Dodge, Multi-Mission Tactical UAS programme manager at NAVAIR, the MQ-8B has been fitted with the Telephonics X-band RDR-1700B+ multimode maritime surveillance radar which is known in USN service as the AN/ZPY-4(V)1.

The crew of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC)-23 "Wildcards" will be the first USN composite helicopter squadron to operate the enhanced MQ-8B UAS fromCoronado in combination with an embarked MH-60S naval helicopter. Pre-deployment training with an under way period for the detachment is expected to commence in March 2016.

"One of the things that we want to use the Fire Scout for is to enhance maritime situational awareness in the sea and airspace around the ship, and persistence is important because you want to keep track of how things change," Capt Dodge said. "Previous to this we were working with an [electro-optical infrared] EO/IR package, and even though we added some algorithms that helped with the detection of targets on the video feed there is still a limit on the field of view that you can get out of it, so we were looking at only a little bit of that sea or airspace at any given time."

"With the radar we are going to open up a 180° aperture and be able to look out at pretty [long] ranges and see it all at once, and that in co-ordination with [built-in] automatic identification system (AIS) to identify merchant shipping will give us a much better ability to be aware of what's going on [before employing] the EO/IR package to visually identify what we are picking up with the radar," he added.

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Singapore Airshow 2016: USN set to debut enhanced MQ-8B Fire Scout UAS aboard Littoral Combat Ship | IHS Jane's 360