Research and development dollars are obviously not an object for Northrop Grumman. From behind closed doors emerges a UAV helicopter attack ship; no doubt the product of an intense development program. The Fire Scout UAV is capable of autonomous take-off, landing, and flight; but of course it can be controlled remotely as well. Likewise, I have no doubt that there has also been some engineering man hours put into enabling it for preprogrammed strike missions. Of course they’ve already equipped some with the Metal Storm weapon, the highest round-per-second gun ever built, mounted on the weapons pylons. Technically, the Fire Scout can be equipped with a multitude of different equipment, from the most deadly weapons to even peaceful observational equipment.
This bad boy has already been procured by the US Army, whose interest in turn spurred a purchase by the US Navy. Apparently, it’s also impressive that the Fire Scout landed on a moving ship, autonomously, during its testing phase, which demonstrated it’s computerized navigation system compensating for the movement of the landing pad. Deployment plans schedule the Fire Scout to be used at the brigade level, and I’m sure that they are looking forward to having such a weapon added to their already omnipotently superior arsenal. On a final note, the Fire Scout is also designed to operate as one of the many cogs in the network-centric weapons development program known as Future Combat Systems.
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