Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Don't we have that attrition data on a backup slide?

So, this will be interesting to watch over the next few years. Via USNINews;
The Navy has abandoned its plans to buy 17 additional Northrop Grumman Fire Scout rotary wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the next five years as part of its Fiscal Year 2015 budget submission.

The submission zeroed out purchases of the helicopter UAVs over the Future Years Defense Plan (FYPD) — the five-year planning period that extends to fiscal year 2019. In its Fiscal Year 2014 FYDP the service indicated it would buy close to 17 MQ-8C Fire Scouts from 2014 to 2018 — primarily for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mission packages.

So far the Navy has purchased 28 of the legacy MQ-8B Fire Scouts and paid for 14 of the larger MQ-8C variants — including two demonstration airframes currently being tested by the Navy in California.
I guess you can always grab come commercial Bell 407s and spray paint the inside of the glass gray later if needed - if things go as expected.

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