Comments on: Northrop Invests Own Money In Fire Scout

By: elgatoso

elgatoso — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:10:35 +0000

Yes,Charles,Phantom Works is Boeing.

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:25:25 +0000

Phantom Works is Boeing is it not?

I dunno what Northrop’s equivalent is.

By: John

John — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:36:16 +0000

agreed .. I’m trying the positive reinforcement approach though.

By: John

John — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:31:53 +0000

definitely true about NG .. the F-20 being a much earlier example (well pre UAVs). I think — as far as complete operational military vehicles funded by internal capital go — they are well ahead of the other two (?). Boeing, perhaps, thinks the airliner biz is risky enough..

By: SMSgt Mac

SMSgt Mac — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:31:14 +0000

NG has been proactive in UAVs for years. Fire Scout was BORN as a company initiative, and IMHO they won the UCAS Demonstrator based upon their sinking their own $ into the X-47A Pegasus and demostrating key competencies.
NG is not alone in the efforts either. Skunkworks and Phantomworks are among the best known of other incubators of Tech (successful and unsuccessful all). The contractor’s know they have to invest to maintain the capabilities they need.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:11:37 +0000

Still kind of nervous about how much time DefTech spends on military fashion

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:10:51 +0000

I no longer trust the Navy’s ability to build a new ship without it costing more than it’ weight in platinum or palladium (which costs more than gold)

By: John

John — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:30:22 +0000

its always nice to see aerospace corp put their money where their mouth is .. congrats to NG for being gutsy enough to bring the Fire Scout program forward on their own (believing in their product and their engineers).. and congrats to defense tech for the good defense technology related articles (recently).. I might have to retract my earlier ‘defenserumor.org’ comment

By: Ed!

Ed! — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:44:58 +0000

Charles:

Maybe instead we should make a ship design like the new flat top destroyers the Japanese have put to sea and turn it into a UAV/UCAV mothership. We could probably put dozens of them onto a destroyer sized ship, still give the ship a main gun, a couple RAMs, Aegis Radar ofcourse, and you got something that can control loads of territory for a small package. I bet it would do wonders in fighting the pirates off Somalia.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:48:59 +0000

Ed!: Fire Scout is cheap in comparison to big projects like F-22 and JSF.

Turning the obsolete FFG’s into UAV motherships might put some more use into the old hulls. Park a bunch near Somalia and control the sea with a swarm of UAVs.