4 ms·
One punchline at the end of the article seems to implicitly agree on drones: > Ward said any future warplane should have clear and narrow requirements, as oppo
by jzwinck 13y ago
One punchline at the end of the article seems to implicitly agree on drones:
> Ward said any future warplane should have clear and narrow requirements, as opposed to the F-35's broad, incompatible guidelines. Development timelines should be fast, budgets should be inexpensive, the overall concept should be simple and hardware should be as tiny as possible.
The one way we have today to accomplish all those goals together is unmanned aircraft. Simple because no life safety systems. Tiny because no human factors (displays, radios, windscreens). Cheap because no need to get every plane home safe (mission success largely determined by delivery of sufficient quantity of planes to the theatre).
- caycep 13y agoAlso, not glamorous enough to attract the attention of Important People in the Pentagon...that's the most important requirement. Let the Designers work in peace!
- Spooky23 13y agoI'd argue that most of the truly successful military aircraft in the US inventory started out as single-purpose aircraft. The F-4 and F-15 were pure fighters. The F-117 and A-10 were pure attack aircraft. The political process drives the insanity of trying to serve multiple purposes with thousands of design engineers strategically located in as many Congressional districts as possible. I think drones should be used for every application that they are appropriate for -- why put people on the line when computers can do the work? But just like the JSF project attempted to serve many masters, assuming drones are the optimal decision for all military aircraft requirements is dumb. The Chinese and Russians are building high performance aircraft for less than $1 Trillion. There's a reason for that. We can too.