Navy Buys Eight $33 Million Fire Scout Unmanned Copters

Navy awards Northrop Grumman with $262 million contract for 8 Fire Scouts with plans to add an additional 20 at a later date.

The Fire Scout has the ability to autonomously take off and land on any aviation-capable warship, can fly at 125+ knots at up to 20,000 feet, for up to 8 hours.

The newly upgraded UAV can provide battle damage assessment, be a communications relay device, is interoperable between land and sea-based actions, and can be armed.