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What if that skilled human pilot was flying a "drone"/unmanned craft rather than sitting in the cockpit? I imagine there are benefits to being "in-person" but
by wavefunction 10y ago
What if that skilled human pilot was flying a "drone"/unmanned craft rather than sitting in the cockpit? I imagine there are benefits to being "in-person" but the unmanned craft could theoretically endure far more extreme maneuvers that would leave a human pilot unconscious or dead.
- mjevans 10y agoMost of that benefit is that you still have something capable of mission decisions when an enemy engages in jamming or other information distortion tactics. On the positive side for 'drones': they can be viewed as both expendable (with costs/limits) and capable of performing maneuvers that would kill a human. I can see narrow beam transmissions on multiple carriers and extremely fault resistant communication protocols combining with remotely manned vehicles. The pilots might best be closer for speed of light delay reduction, but realistically you could have a relay in some kind of helicopter type vehicle a short distance from the actual fight, and the expert pilots stationed somewhere even more safe. While you're at it, that helicopter/blimp/etc could also be your primary communication platform for a local region; it's already a high value target so there's little reason not to use it as an additional uplink.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]