The combination of a technical glitch and an errant keystroke was all it took to initiate the self-destruct sequence in one of the Navy’s new unmanned helicopters.
While an MQ-8B Fire Scout was flying from the frigate Halyburton earlier this year, the wire on the operator’s headset pressed down the space bar on his keyboard, a keystroke that had the same effect as hitting the “Enter” key. In this case, it activated the self-destruct countdown counter, the first of several steps needed to destroy the aircraft.
The crisis was averted and the Fire Scout was saved. But the slip-up was one of the several technical troubles listed in a June 24 report from the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation on the Fire Scout. The report found that the Fire Scout completed 29 of 58 assigned missions while on the frigate — a 50 percent success rate — and failed 10 of 10 test missions at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., as it prepared to support Operation Enduring Freedom.
The report attributes the bulk of the troubles to a faulty data link between the Fire Scout and the command station, a problem that required operators to improvise. As a result, it can take over an hour longer than planned — the average delay is 67 minutes — to get the aircraft off the ground if the mission isn’t scrapped altogether.
When things are working properly the aircraft provides commanders with good intelligence while avoiding enemy detection, the report says, but the delayed flights and interruptions mean it’s too unreliable for quick responses to unexpected targets.
The report’s authors concluded that the aircraft in what could become a $2.8 billion program is incapable of providing ground troops with time-sensitive intelligence. The Navy plans to buy up to 168 Fire Scouts.
RECENT SUCCESS STORIES
The Navy and Northrop Grumman, the unmanned helicopter’s developer, agreed with parts of the report, but said that technical improvements made after the report’s data were compiled — January through April — create a rosier assessment. Also, recent missions have been successful and upgrades have stabilized the platform. Furthermore, since going to Afghanistan in April for a one-year deployment, Fire Scout has exceeded flight objectives and has provided reliable real-time video support.
Navy officials were unable to say whether the aircraft that were on Halyburton were the same ones that deployed to Afghanistan.
“There are certainly some things that we agree with [in] the report and certainly some things that we don’t, many of which, in the category of the ones we don’t, are based on timing and the data available at the time of the DoD report,” said George Vardoulakis, a vice president for tactical unmanned systems at Northrop Grumman.
The report attributes most of Fire Scout’s problems to the data link and said the connection would sometimes crash even while the Fire Scout was airborne, forcing operators to either re-establish the connection midflight or abort the mission.
Dave Maier, head of the Vertical Take Off and Landing Unmanned Air Vehicle Team at Naval Air Systems Command, said this problem caused a Fire Scout flying from Pax River to fly uncontrolled for about 30 minutes toward Washington, D.C., during an August test flight; the aircraft entered restricted airspace before operators regained control.
A software patch has since been installed. Several Navy spokespeople said they did not know the cause of a June 21 Fire Scout crash in Libya but said that it was not due to the data link.
The Navy and Northrop Grumman both said Fire Scout has performed well recently and that the report did not consider more recent successful flights.
Vardoulakis said the problems on Halyburton were largely caused by a broken antenna needed for the data link. Once the hardware was repaired, the mission success rate skyrocketed to more than 97 percent, he said.
Northrop Grumman and the Navy both said the self-destruct countdown initiation was the first in several steps before the aircraft would destroy itself.
Fire Scout is exceeding its 300 flight-hour-per-month goal in Afghanistan; has racked up 650 hours since May; and provided real-time, full-motion video support to troops in the field while being reliable and maintainable, said Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, program executive officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Systems.
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