Northrop Grumman won a $16 million deal to provide two additional MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical takeoff and landing Tactical Unmanned Air Vehicles (VTUAV) for the U.S. Navy. Including this award, the Navy has a total of nine Fire Scouts on contract with Northrop Grumman. “With the addition of these two air vehicles, we will be able to complete operational test and evaluation as well as some spiral development preparations and test of future payloads,” said Cmdr. Rob Murphy, the Navy’s VTUAV Fire Scout program manager. System design work on the Fire Scout is performed in San Diego. The Fire Scout is assembled at the Unmanned Systems Center in Moss Point, Miss. The MQ-8B successfully completed the first series of autonomous flight testing in December. The next two years of planned activity on this program include entering low-rate initial production, operational evaluation on a Littoral Combat Ship and operational capability in 2008. More