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South Coast Home To Cutting Edge Secret Military Drone Programs

Navy's MQ-8B Fire Scout UAS helicopter is one of the cutting edge unmanned aerial vehicles now at Naval base Ventura County

In a hangar at Naval Base Ventura County’s Point Mugu facilities, there are a half-dozen craft which look like strange little helicopters. They almost look like sharks, with rotors attached, and the biggest thing you notice is there’s no cockpit for a pilot.  

They are the Navy's MQ-8B Fire Scout helicopters, with the technology of these unmanned ship based craft so cutting edge access to this hangar is restricted, and we can’t even identify the man giving us the tour of the facility.

It’s a new maintenance base for the Fire Scout craft assigned to ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The 30 foot long helicopters can fly four to six hours, and give ships the ability to safely observe other vessels, or land based activity.

The craft allow the military to gather intelligence which might be too dangerous for mannedcollect.  Off of the hangar is a room loaded with electronics, and at its center are a pair of video consoles, used to test fly the craft when they are at Point Mugu for maintenance.

The Fire Scouts are controlled with smart technology. You don’t fly them like a helicopter. You just put in where you want it to go, and computers calculate how to get there, and compensate for things like wind and rain.

The Ventura County base is becoming a major hub for unmanned military craft. It’s also going to be the West Coast home for the Triton, an 48 foot long unmanned reconnaissance craft which can fly up to 2,000 nautical miles, and more than 30 hours.

The unmanned aerial vehicle additions are adding both military and civilian jobs to the base. While Naval Base Ventura County is a military facility, about two thirds of the people who work on the base are civilians.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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