5 ms·

Can someone more knowledgeable than me in this matter explain why fighter jets still require human pilots? Why aren't they completely replaced by drones?

by belval 6y ago

bodhiandphysics 6y ago
Drones are dependent on an active satellite link to function. What happens if the enemy jams the satellite?
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Peace at last.
- fishnchips 6y ago
  Wouldn’t jamming the satellite affect F-35, too?
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Yes and no. The whole thesis of the F-35 is apparently an airborne sensor fusion and electronic warfare platform as well as a modern BVR jet - it's going to be harder to jam because of both redundancy and the amount of hardware real estate the designers can play with to counter said jamming. On the subject of electronic warfare - I assume it's still very classified but given that the current teen series aircraft apparently have some serious EW magic in them (I don't have any citations for exactly what they can do other than I read some comments by IIRC an Australian ground radar operator and apparently they were completely outgunned - i.e. fake formations rather than mere jamming) I think we will be reading about exactly they can do at great length on the hackernews's of the future.
    - fishnchips 6y ago
      Radar jamming and other magic aside, I’m just wondering to what extent the equipment in a modern jet like F-35 depends on satellite link. So to what extent putting a human in the machine actually changes its capability as opposed to a drone with an autonomous mode.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        > I’m just wondering to what extent the equipment in a modern jet like F-35 depends on satellite link. Not very much, the datalink is sort of peer-to-peer - the F-35 is one of the first aircarft to have a satellite datalink.
  - onepointsixC 6y ago
    Sure but a human doesn't have issue still executing their mission, making decisions based on changing circumstances, and successfully return to base.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    If you jam a drone it is just a machine gun volley away from destruction. A human pilot can avoid anti air or even do the first strike against the enemy.
mhh__ 6y ago
1. Technology isn't there yet - the recent AI vs. F-16 thing was a publicity stunt: The performance of the AI was impressive, but it was both cheating and competing in an environment where the pilot wasn't really comfortable (IIRC Simulators are almost never used to practice combat tactics, so they might as well've got a competitive DCS player in) 2. A pilot isn't just a sack of meat that uses monkey-instincts to steer the plane forward, they are a cog in a very large machine both making decisions and following and interpreting orders as the situation changes around them. Drone jets have existed for decades, they're called cruise missiles.
- euler_angles 6y ago
  Simulators are used quite regularly to practice combat tactics! In fact, that's one of the intended uses of the Joint Simulation Environment that the article discusses. DCS's missile simulation models are so far from the real thing that DCS is what simulation engineers refer to as "negative training". That is, if you train to fight using DCS, you're training to fight within DCS, not training in a way that's going to carry over to the real world. DCS is fine for what it is -- a simulation that reflects as much of the pilot/vehicle interface of various aircraft as is possible. But when it comes to sensors and weapons, it's very far from reality. The Alpha Dogfight trials were a PR stunt but they were also a part of a larger program to see how AI technology can assist human pilots. Alpha Dogfight is akin to things like Deep Blue/Alpha Go in that it has opened up a whole domain to further research and deployment of AI systems to assist humans.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    They didn't have missiles hence why the DCS pilot may have done better as they said at the time the pilot was not practiced on the simulator.
    - euler_angles 6y ago
      Yes, I'm aware, I followed the Alpha Dogfight trials closely. If anyone else is wondering, they used a 3000 foot cone with point at the nose of the simulated aircraft, any time the enemy got within 3000 feet and 1 degree of the boresight of the plane, a certain number of hits per simulated frame were counted as hitting. Get X number of hits, that's a kill. For the livestreams they wonderfully represented this as a health bar.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
credit_guy 6y ago
Here’s why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident

Can someone more knowledgeable than me in this matter explain why fighter jets still require human pilots? Why aren't they completely replaced by drones?

by belval 6y ago

Can someone more knowledgeable than me in this matter explain why fighter jets still require human pilots? Why aren't they completely replaced by drones?

bodhiandphysics 6y ago

Drones are dependent on an active satellite link to function. What happens if the enemy jams the satellite?

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
Peace at last.
fishnchips 6y ago
Wouldn’t jamming the satellite affect F-35, too?
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Yes and no. The whole thesis of the F-35 is apparently an airborne sensor fusion and electronic warfare platform as well as a modern BVR jet - it's going to be harder to jam because of both redundancy and the amount of hardware real estate the designers can play with to counter said jamming. On the subject of electronic warfare - I assume it's still very classified but given that the current teen series aircraft apparently have some serious EW magic in them (I don't have any citations for exactly what they can do other than I read some comments by IIRC an Australian ground radar operator and apparently they were completely outgunned - i.e. fake formations rather than mere jamming) I think we will be reading about exactly they can do at great length on the hackernews's of the future.
  - fishnchips 6y ago
    Radar jamming and other magic aside, I’m just wondering to what extent the equipment in a modern jet like F-35 depends on satellite link. So to what extent putting a human in the machine actually changes its capability as opposed to a drone with an autonomous mode.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      > I’m just wondering to what extent the equipment in a modern jet like F-35 depends on satellite link. Not very much, the datalink is sort of peer-to-peer - the F-35 is one of the first aircarft to have a satellite datalink.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  Sure but a human doesn't have issue still executing their mission, making decisions based on changing circumstances, and successfully return to base.
- imtringued 6y ago
  If you jam a drone it is just a machine gun volley away from destruction. A human pilot can avoid anti air or even do the first strike against the enemy.

mhh__ 6y ago

1. Technology isn't there yet - the recent AI vs. F-16 thing was a publicity stunt: The performance of the AI was impressive, but it was both cheating and competing in an environment where the pilot wasn't really comfortable (IIRC Simulators are almost never used to practice combat tactics, so they might as well've got a competitive DCS player in) 2. A pilot isn't just a sack of meat that uses monkey-instincts to steer the plane forward, they are a cog in a very large machine both making decisions and following and interpreting orders as the situation changes around them. Drone jets have existed for decades, they're called cruise missiles.

euler_angles 6y ago
Simulators are used quite regularly to practice combat tactics! In fact, that's one of the intended uses of the Joint Simulation Environment that the article discusses. DCS's missile simulation models are so far from the real thing that DCS is what simulation engineers refer to as "negative training". That is, if you train to fight using DCS, you're training to fight within DCS, not training in a way that's going to carry over to the real world. DCS is fine for what it is -- a simulation that reflects as much of the pilot/vehicle interface of various aircraft as is possible. But when it comes to sensors and weapons, it's very far from reality. The Alpha Dogfight trials were a PR stunt but they were also a part of a larger program to see how AI technology can assist human pilots. Alpha Dogfight is akin to things like Deep Blue/Alpha Go in that it has opened up a whole domain to further research and deployment of AI systems to assist humans.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  They didn't have missiles hence why the DCS pilot may have done better as they said at the time the pilot was not practiced on the simulator.
  - euler_angles 6y ago
    Yes, I'm aware, I followed the Alpha Dogfight trials closely. If anyone else is wondering, they used a 3000 foot cone with point at the nose of the simulated aircraft, any time the enemy got within 3000 feet and 1 degree of the boresight of the plane, a certain number of hits per simulated frame were counted as hitting. Get X number of hits, that's a kill. For the livestreams they wonderfully represented this as a health bar.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

credit_guy 6y ago

Here’s why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–U.S._RQ-170_incident