海軍的無人直升機

????今年初夏，美國海軍仍處在試階段的X－47B無人機成功在喬治布什號航母上起降，它也被稱作是美國海軍的第一架真正的“無人機”。不過事實上，美國海軍還有一款名叫MQ－8B“火力偵察兵”的無人直升機已經(jīng)服役多年了。上周，“火力偵察兵”的生產(chǎn)商諾斯羅普格魯曼公司（Northrop Grumman）在AUVSI展會上表示，這個機型在阿富汗戰(zhàn)區(qū)已經(jīng)累計飛行了整整5000小時。

????不過關(guān)于“火力偵察兵”更有趣的消息則是來自加州莫哈韋沙漠中國湖的美國航空武器站，只是這個消息肯定會使反對無人機的人們感到不舒服。美國海軍日前宣布，一架搭載了一套“高級精確殺傷武器系統(tǒng)”的火力偵察兵已經(jīng)成功完成了12次實彈試擊，其中有11次成功命中規(guī)定的目標(biāo)半徑之內(nèi)。美國海軍早在一年多以前就開始研究把“高級精確殺傷武器系統(tǒng)”整合到火力偵察兵上。（所謂“高級精確殺傷武器系統(tǒng)”其實是美軍從越戰(zhàn)時期起遺留下來的一種傳統(tǒng)火箭彈，美軍對這種老舊的武器進行了升級，在彈身加裝了精確制導(dǎo)模塊提升了它的智能化。）現(xiàn)在我們知道，他們終于成功了。

The Navy's unmanned helicopter

????When the Navy launched and landed its experimental X-47B unmanned jet aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George H.W. Bush earlier this summer, it was widely referred to as the Navy's first real "drone." But the Navy has actually been flying an unmanned helicopter known as the MQ-8B Fire Scout for years now. Northrop Grumman (NOC, Fortune 500), maker of the Fire Scout, announced at last week's AUVSI show that a full 5,000 of those hours were logged in the Afghanistan theater of operations.

????But the more interesting news regarding Fire Scout came from Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California's Mojave Desert. In a development that will surely make the anti-drone crowd squirm, the Navy announced that a Fire Scout armed with a guided rocket munition known as the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System had completed 12 firings of the projectile, with 11 of those successfully hitting within the desired target radius. The Navy has been talking about integrating the APKWS (which is essentially a Vietnam-era legacy "dumb" rocket upgraded with a precision guidance module, making it quite smart) on Fire Scout for more than a year. Now we know they've done so, and it's working.