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FireScout scores first drug bust

Posted by Chris Anderson on April 14, 2010 at 12:41pm

From BotJunkie: "Last week, one of the Fire Scouts currently undergoing testing aboard the USS McInerney managed a real drug bust after noticing what turned out to be a “go fast” drug boat on radar. The Fire Scout shadowed the boat for 3 hours, and after it rendezvoused with a fishing boat, the Coast Guard moved in and nabbed the baddies.
...
No matter how cool and useful it might be, the Fire Scout program for the Army is still canceled. Sad face. But, it looks like it might at least have a future in the Navy."


(pic also from BotJunkie)


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Comments

  • Ron Jacobs April 15, 2010 at 7:19am
    Looks like the video above is all IR (infrared?) footage. They appear to be mucking about with exposure and "inversion" of the image switching fom a "negative" to a "positive" image. There are other posts and youtube videos out there with "better" footage. We have to rememberall this footage is suffering from compression for use online. its most cool that they used this right off a training/test mission to nab some big bad guys. So cool.
  • Stephen McAmis April 14, 2010 at 9:07pm
    Ron... that's a good video. I suppose I made a mistake when I was asking about the footage... it was, after all, the thing in action and not an attempt to 'push' the fire hawk... still it seems like the operator would have tried to gain more detail with some of the other optics as opposed to just thermals. I guess it goes to the primary mission... keep an eye on the bad guys till the USS Mcinerny arrived on scene.
  • Jack Crossfire April 14, 2010 at 5:39pm
    Get a more stable camera gimbal.
  • Ron Jacobs April 14, 2010 at 4:02pm
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMlCXXJ3_tI&feature=related

    forgot to put the link in...
  • Ron Jacobs April 14, 2010 at 4:02pm
    Here is a link to some better video footage; sort of a montage of the different types of vision the fire scout has , i guess?
  • Stephen McAmis April 14, 2010 at 2:59pm
    I might actually have a line on this to a certain extent... I will see what I can find out. It might not be directly related to Fire Hawk but hopefully will provide some insight. and of course there's the possibility I won't be able to learn a thing... still, worth a shot.
  • Stephen McAmis April 14, 2010 at 2:16pm
    i see they switched to white hot at 4:41.. still.
  • Stephen McAmis April 14, 2010 at 2:10pm
    ok, that's from 6:37pm to around 8pm local time in the Gulf eleven days ago. (i'm assuming).
    Wouldn't this be daylight hours? I wonder what other optics the Fire Scout has.... seems they never show the detailed footage regardless of daylight etc... It confuses me to a certain extent.
    Thermal and Black Hot? I know it has to have better optics... right? Or am I missing something.
    Of course there could be a visibility issue unrelated to daylight.. also could be a classified optics system to a degree... but still, you'd think if they were pushing this as a product they'd produce better footage as well as what you see there.
This reply was deleted.