Comments on: Baby’s First Afterburner

By: Thursday

Thursday — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:11:13 +0000

The trick with unmanned jets is that, while they look good in theory, aircraft really aren’t much more durable than pilots under stress, and a remote control system leaves your entire air force vulnerable to some clever joker with a jammer. This leaves AI systems, which begs the question; who do people trust more, pilots, or programmers?
Every time people come up with a new weapon, they seem to expect it to be a panacea. Remember all the business back in the 60’s about how missiles would make dogfighting obsolete? They said the same thing about the Eagle with its ginormous radar. Missiles are still evadable to this day, and eagle drivers still get in awkward knife fights with more agile F-16’s that sneak under their radar. Stealth is going to make this game even harder for computers in the future.

By: WS

WS — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:31:53 +0000

Actually there are a fair amount of people here in the Air Force, pilots included, who do want UAVs. SECAF just released a letter (some media coverage) to that effect.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 14:41:46 +0000

Actually, unmanned jets really aren’t a USAF desire. Remember the term “fighter mafia”? The Air Force is run by pilots — they don’t want to relegate themselves to the annals of history.
The push for UAVs comes from those outside the Air Force.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:12:25 +0000

Peter–
If I’m not mistaken, since Mikoyan-Gurevich is involved, they’re probably looking for a buyer for the 1.42/1.44/Flatiron/MiG-39/whatever it’s called. It actually flew well before the F-35.

By: Foreign.Boy

Foreign.Boy — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:13:05 +0000

There is also nothing to stop them from making a ‘simple’ robot that would just pull levers and push pedals. A sort of ‘retro fit’ unmanned air craft.

By: Foreign.Boy

Foreign.Boy — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:11:45 +0000

The move to unmanned jets is referring to the fact that Jet technology (engine technology) is soon going to make it impossible for a normal man to survive. Especially since they want to fly ‘faster higher and more agile’.
Also from the desire to lessen casualties of highly trained pilots and the ability to fly longer sorties (just get up from your desk and go pee).
This is mostly a USAF desire. However, once this technology is in place, it’ll become a new arms race.
It’s a frightening thought of Nuclear Laden Jets being controlled remotely. I’d hate to see a super smart hacker-terrorist gain control of a nuke and land it safely (and possibly invisible to radar ‘stealth tech’) without anyone having a chance to stop this from happening.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:56:23 +0000

This article at DID was posted just a few days ago.
India, Russia in Negotiations re: Next-Generation Fighter
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/03/india-russia-in-negotiations-re-nextgeneration-fighter/index.php
There is a strong likelihood this will be a maned aircraft ‚but I will be curious as to what its looks like.