New Rotary Wing UAV Participates in “Resolute Hunter” Exercise

The Navy’s shiny new MQ-8C Fire Scout had the chance to strut its stuff at this year’s exercise, flying a total of 23 hours and providing some real-life demonstration of the uncrewed helicopter’s capabilities.

The test took place off the coast of California, where Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23 remotely directed the MQ-8 through a hand-off to an alternate control point offshore. 

The unit launched their MQ-8 from Point Mugu before navigating it overwater to fall under the direction of the Portable Mission Control Station on San Clemente island. The system proves the flexibility of the Fire Scout, with future deployments using the UAV to provide reconnaissance, situational awareness, and survey across a range of Navy missions.

In theory, the Scout should be able to take off from a ship underway before flying towards an area of interest, all the while being capable of receiving command and control signals from either the ship of origin or a command station deployed ashore.

Of course, exercises like Resolute Hunter are the first steps towards using the the system in a wartime environment. 

“Fire Scout is the Navy’s only unmanned helicopter with the ability to deploy from a ship or land with ISR&T at the extended range required for future warfighting,” said Captain Dennis Monagle, program manager for the MQ-8. This year has been a busy one for his office, taking the Fire Scout through its paces with its biggest end user client to see just how the aircraft integrates into Navy operations. He describes the system as “vital in expeditionary use for situational awareness and critical decision-making,” probably not too far off given the dearth of unmanned, ship-launched scouting aircraft in the service. The  

FMI: www.navair.navy.mil