News - Local

Friday, Oct. 23, 2009

Test flights to begin

MOSS POINT — Northrop Grumman plans to begin conducting test flights of its small, unmanned Navy helicopter Fire Scout in the skies over Jackson County within the first few months of next year.

At present, the Northrop Grumman aviation plant at Trent Lott International Airport in Moss Point builds the Fire Scout, then ships it to Maryland for flight testing.

All that’s about to change.

Jackson County and the Mississippi Development Authority have shelled out money and worked hard this year to make the adaptations necessary at Trent Lott to accommodate unmanned test flights.

The airport is already one of the very few certified by the FAA to hold unmanned flights. And now, a $850,000 taxiway extension connects the Northrop Grumman Unmanned Systems Center to the runway, making the trip from finished product to test flight a short and safe one for the multi-million dollar drones.

The last two hurdles are final Navy clearance and the installation of a control system at the aviation center.

The control system is the console that Fire Scout operators use when the aircraft is in flight. It’s a Northrop Grumman asset that is being installed in one of the buildings in the Moss Point plant, said Doug Fronius, director of Tactical Unmanned Systems.

Along with flight testing comes maintenance. The company plans to add 10 new jobs for flight testing and eight to 10 through the maintenance support contract, company officials said Friday. Three have already been filled.

These permanent jobs are part of the commitment Northrop Grumman made in order for the county to get the economic development money needed to extend the taxiway.

The Fire Scout is about the size of a large pickup truck and can maneuver ahead of ground troops or land on a small aircraft carrier. Northrop Aviation is producing the Fire Scout for both the Army and the Navy.

The Moss Point plant also assembles the fuselage of the Global Hawk, an unmanned airplane that can conduct reconnaissance from high altitudes with very sensitive and sophisticated equipment.

Trent Lott Airport would need another 1,500 feet added to the runway to accommodate test flights of Global Hawk. Runway extension is a project for the future, county economic development officials said.

George Freeland, director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation, said the new taxiway could also link the airport to new customers. He said he sees it as “another incremental step to expanding the airport to support a broad range of new aerospace investment and technological development.”