5 ms·
6th gen fighter designs are trending towards significantly larger aircraft. The amount of hardware a human needs for support is relatively fixed so as aircraft
by thunderbird120 5y ago
6th gen fighter designs are trending towards significantly larger aircraft. The amount of hardware a human needs for support is relatively fixed so as aircraft size increases, ditching the pilot becomes less and less beneficial. Most fighters are also not limited by human G endurance but rather by structural limits.
Fighters are growing in size because engagement distances have massively increased thanks to the proliferation of high quality sensors and long range missiles. This ultimately means that the fighters need to have more range (fuel capacity), more powerful (bigger) sensors, more electrical generation capacity to power those sensors, and they need carry more and larger munitions.
For an aircraft that meets those requirements you can take the pilot out and you won't see many benefits. It's still going to be large and very expensive.
Smaller, cheaper drones can supplement this but they are not a replacement.