Coast Guard favors Fire Scout as new pilotless aircraft.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Coast Guard

The Coast Guard intends to follow the lead of the Navy when it comes to fielding its long-delayed vertical take off and landing unmanned aerial vehicles, said the chief of the service's acquisition directorate.

"We think we want to be aligned with the Navy on this particular technology because it just makes good sense for both of us," said Rear Adm. Ronald Rabago, assistant commandant for acquisitions at the Coast Guard.

The Navy is in the advanced stages of testing and has approved low-rate initial production of the MQ-8 Fire Scout rotary-wing UAV manufactured by Northrop Grumman.

The Coast Guard wants a vertical-UAV to fly off its new National Security and Offshore Patrol Cutters. The service spent five years and $113.7 minion to develop a tilt-wing aircraft manufactured by Bell Aircraft. That program ran into technical problems and funding delays and was canceled in 2007.

Since then, the Coast Guard has been studying the problem and taking a wait-and-see position as the Navy tests the Fire Scout. A new report on the service's UAV strategy is due in 2010.

While it may be one of the smallest assets in the Coast Guard's $24 billion Deepwater modernization program, it is considered one of the most important, according to a June Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report on the VUAV.

"Acquisition of the VUAV was a key component of the Integrated Deepwater System (Deepwater) Contract," said the report. Without it, the operational effectiveness of the new National Security Cutter will be comparable to the Hamilton-class high endurance cutter it is intended to replace.

The number of nautical square miles the NSC can conduct aerial surveillance is reduced by 68 percent, from 58,000 to 18,000, when helicopters launched from the cutters are used instead of the drones, the report said.

The Government Accountability Office in a July report on the operational effectiveness of the National Security Cutters criticized the lack of progress. If an aircraft is selected in 2010, GAO said, it would "still require several years of construction and testing after its initial selection."

Rabago said: "I think it could happen a little quicker." There are funds in the Coast Guard's 2010 budget to continue testing the Fire Scout, he added.

Meanwhile, a Fire Scout recently underwent a dry fit test on the first National Security Cutter, the Bertholf. It was not flown on to the deck, but it was placed there to see how the crew would manage taking it in...