5 ms·
There was a recent story about the Air Force trying to kill off one of their most cost effective aircraft, whether that's evidence of a "fighter mafia" or not i
by Grambo 5y ago
There was a recent story about the Air Force trying to kill off one of their most cost effective aircraft, whether that's evidence of a "fighter mafia" or not is debatable, but it does show the USAF's proclivity for expensive high-tech over cost effective platforms.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-reaper-drone-retirement/ https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-reaper-drone-retir...
- nradov 5y agoThe MQ-9 Reaper is cost effective for counter insurgency missions but it requires reliable high-bandwidth remote control data links to operate. In any conflict with a peer adversary they will shoot down the communications satellites and jam other links, making such drones mostly useless.
- sroussey 5y agoWhich is why they will become autonomous…
- nradov 5y agoPerhaps someday, but for now that's science fiction. Autonomous vehicles can only perform a very narrow range of missions.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoAutonomous drones will be either useless, or equally dangerous to everyone. FoF is gonna be a crapshoot
- cnlevy 5y agoThey have enough rockets equipped with ASAT weapons to destroy the Starlink satellites ? All 40 000 of them (planned, about 2500 already in orbit)? https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/spacex-prepares-for-air-force-test-of-starlink-satellite-internet.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/spacex-prepares-for-air-forc...
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoShooting down just a few dozen satellites will produce kessler syndrome, there will be no satellites or spacecraft for anyone for decades. Also, you don't even have to shoot them, there is jamming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome