3 ms·

An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-R

by jpdus 7y ago

An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably be China, where there will be less opposition to such a move. The western countries will follow and the F35 will most likely be the last "big" non-autonomous program (excluding aircraft for special roles). On an unrelated note: I submitted this article 4 days ago without any discussion [1], does anyone know what the time frame for resubmission on HN nowadays is? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128

bhouston 7y ago
The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well it is all over.
- thunderbird120 7y ago
  Supermanuverable <10m autonomous aircraft that have destroyed modern fighters already exist. They're called missiles. Modern fighter aircraft are expensive because they are relatively large and crammed with tones of expensive avionics and sensors. Increasingly, the quality of your sensors and your ability to evade detection are more and more important while maneuverability is less important because of said missiles. Better sensors are larger and require more power to operate necessitating a larger aircraft. Also, the number of Gs an aircraft can pull is limited by both human survivability and airframe strength. This means as the size of the aircraft increases the max number of Gs it can pull will decrease. Missiles can pull 50 Gs. Even if you remove the human, no aircraft large enough to carry the necessary sensors, fuel, and weapons to be combat effective will reach even 1/3 of that because it would rip the wings off.

by jpdus 7y ago

bhouston 7y ago

The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well it is all over.

thunderbird120 7y ago
Supermanuverable <10m autonomous aircraft that have destroyed modern fighters already exist. They're called missiles. Modern fighter aircraft are expensive because they are relatively large and crammed with tones of expensive avionics and sensors. Increasingly, the quality of your sensors and your ability to evade detection are more and more important while maneuverability is less important because of said missiles. Better sensors are larger and require more power to operate necessitating a larger aircraft. Also, the number of Gs an aircraft can pull is limited by both human survivability and airframe strength. This means as the size of the aircraft increases the max number of Gs it can pull will decrease. Missiles can pull 50 Gs. Even if you remove the human, no aircraft large enough to carry the necessary sensors, fuel, and weapons to be combat effective will reach even 1/3 of that because it would rip the wings off.