A Northrop Grumman [NOC] executive said the company plans to propose a larger variant of the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter in the Navy-Marine Corps program for providing a supply lift capability to soldiers in remote locations.
George Vardoulakis, vice president for tactical unmanned systems, said in an interview Friday that Northrop Grumman and partner Bell Helicopter, a subsidiary of Textron [TXT], have been investing internal research and development dollars to fund the MQ-8C, which is based on Bell’s 407 airframe.
The company is already designing MQ-8C to provide more flight time and on-station endurance–about eight hours–than the smaller MQ-8B, Vardoulakis said. But Northrop Grumman also envisions at some point in the future competing the MQ-8C in the cargo airlift program currently known in its early stages as Cargo UAS, he said.
The Cargo UAS program was created by the Navy and Marine Corps to fill an urgent requirements need in Afghanistan. The unmanned, autonomous flying helicopters are intended to reduce risks, such as ambushes or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), associated with ground convoys.
The Navy awarded dueling development contracts to Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] in December 2010 to create an unmanned airlift capability under the urgent requirement. Northrop Grumman will introduce the larger Fire Scout to the competition if the Navy decides to establish it as a program of record and hold a competition, Vardoulakis said.
“At some point it will turn into a program that is competed and we want to be in a position to do it,” Vardoulakis said.
Lockheed Martin, in partnership with Kaman Aerospace [KAMN], has provided the K-MAX helicopter. Two of them deployed to Afghanistan in November and Marine Corps officials have said the system has shown promise. Boeing’s program, based on the AT-160 Hummingbird, has struggled to overcome technical problems, prompting the Marine Corps to issue a 60-day stop-work order in December.
Northrop Grumman and Bell Helicopters began developing the MQ-8C a couple years ago and more recently it has been undergoing cargo testing at the Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, Vardoulakis said.
The Navy has initiated the process of arming the MQ-8B, which is due to be part of the mission modules for the Littoral Combat Ship class, and it also been deployed on larger ships. Vardoulakis said that Bell Helicopters has already certified the MQ-8C airframe to carry armaments such as Hellfire missiles. He said the MQ-8C is designed to operate off of all Navy ships with helicopter pads.