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Empty F-16 jet tested by Boeing and US Air Force
- moocowduckquack 13y agoOhh, so that's what they kept them for - http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01583/planes-big_1583925a.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01583/planes-big...
- moj 13y agoLooks like that's a picture of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and not even the whole boneyard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and_Regeneration_Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and... https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.17089,-110.855184&q=loc:32.17089,-110.855184&hl=en&t=h&z=15 https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.17089,-110.855184&q=loc:3...
- CountSessine 13y agoHowever, a spokesman for the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots warned of the temptation to use them in warfare. I had no idea such an organization existed. The future is now, I guess.
- bitwize 13y agoYeah, they've got an extensive partnership with the Association to Prevent Skynet From Happening.
- wintersFright 13y agoThis is worth a watch http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_shouldn_t_belong_to_a_robot.html http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_sho...
- ballard 13y agoIt's a great, insightful video. So from a friend that was a major in the USAF flying fixed and rotor wing aircraft: the current UCMJ / ROEs requires an officer present for each and every kill decision. Period. If that doesn't happen, it's get-a-lawyer-and-court-martial time. Probably main US military isn't the biggest threat if the video's fears in the near term, there are too many people watching: it's any force of any country that doesn't respect rules of war.
- lostlogin 13y agoVery reassuring. Some military guy decides who lives and who dies. The civilian kill rate is likely high (but we can't really judge for sure as the US military doesn't tell us that stuff), are you really sure the US isn't a big threat? Court martial? It's a slap on the wrist for murder. How severely punished were those who conducted war crimes in Iraq? The US might respect most rules of war, but not by any stretch does it respect all of them. Hell, it doesn't even accept a war is occurring in some of the conflicts it is pursuing. How many of the US drones are firing into areas with a declared war? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/journalists-website-breaks-silence-victims-drone http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/journalists-web... edit: For clarity.
- pjmlp 13y agoI always found funny that war has rules, when people are just trying to kill other people no matter what.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoI remember first hearing that there were rules to war as a kid. I literally couldn't believe it. You can make the argument that there are some very inhumane/barbaric ways to kill people, and as a "civilized" world, we shouldn't engage in them. But, that line of reasoning always takes you back to, "wait, how about we just not kill people at all?"
- ajuc 13y agoI'm sure after all armies are automatized somebody will eventually realize both sides can save billions and get same effect by just simulating the whole thing on computer.
- tlb 13y agoIt's a serious coalition of NGOs. http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/. They call for a ban on "robotics weapons systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human". Lots of weapons already meet that requirement.
- state 13y agoCould you give some examples?
- toomuchtodo 13y agohttp://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/
- tlb 13y agoGuided missiles.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThey are not selecting targets autonomously; they're just following a particular target the person shooting them wants dead.
- mjn 13y agoA broad reading of the language could include even classic target-seeking missiles. A heat-seeking missile is a rudimentary heuristic "AI agent" that makes "decisions" on direction of travel based on looking for hotspots. Sometimes this hits the target the person shooting wanted dead, but other times it hits a different target, because the "AI" made the wrong "decision". It's easy to use scare quotes here, because the automated behavior is so direct and understandable that we don't really see it as AI. Even when it does something other than what the human intended, it doesn't seem like a rebellious robot, just a heat-seeking missile that happened to be near an unexpected heat source, which it of course followed, and therefore hit the wrong thing. The general idea that the human is giving high-level orders and a robot is making local decisions in an attempt to carry them out is not that different though. The main difference is that the local decision logic is nowadays getting more complex than "find hot thing nearby". But that too is a gradual trend: even old heat-seeking missiles started getting more complex logic, to try to avoid being misled by flares.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoI feel it should be headed by a girl called Yoshimi.
- themstheones 13y agoNow that's what I call upcycling.
- narfquat 13y agoThe firm added that the flight attained 7Gs of acceleration but was capable of carrying out manoeuvres at 9Gs - something that might cause physical problems for a pilot. Wow, I guess this means they can push the machines to their mechanical limit without worrying about blackouts/redouts/etc. I wonder what kind of crazy maneuvers they can pull off without the biological factor? Also: I'm not sure how I feel about a $15-18 million target dummy... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...
- pachydermic 13y agoWithout a pilot, you could design a pretty radically different jet... good point. What if we put missiles on our missiles?
- narfquat 13y agoI think you're on to something... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetab...
- jlgreco 13y agoAlternatively, SLAM, the (never made) supersonic nuclear powered cruise missle that would fly across a country popping off nukes as it went: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThat was one scary piece of hardware. Fly a group in formation and completely depopulate large sections of planet.
- cobrausn 13y agoEven better, how about laser-riding submunitions on our missiles? Sounds cooler, anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak_missile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak_missile
- Kallikrates 13y agoI suppose they are running out of converted F-4 drones.
- gwern 13y ago> Boeing suggested that the innovation could ultimately be used to help train pilots, providing an adversary they could practise firing on. They're not even trying, are they.
- sliverstorm 13y agoDogfighting is supposedly becoming a lost skill in the air force, so maybe it's not as silly of a suggestion as you might think.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoDogfighting will be lost for the same reason the SR-71 was retired: New technologies came along that superseded them. Doesn't matter if you can dogfight if you disable the vehicle with a laser from the ground (future) or you can overwhelm it with surface-to-air missiles (now). An aircraft is now just a mobile long-range weapons platform.
- sliverstorm 13y agoThe balance of power shifts all the time. Don't assume today's paradigm will be the paradigm of tomorrow. For example, if the skies of tomorrow are filled with inexpensive drones, it's grossly cost-ineffective to fight with long range guided missiles.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoTrue, but it'll probably be stupid cheap to fight them with high-energy microwave emitters. We don't plan to fight calvary anymore, do we? And hence there goes dogfighting.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago>For example, if the skies of tomorrow are filled with inexpensive drones, it's grossly cost-ineffective to fight with long range guided missiles. Perhaps. But human dogfighting skills will prove even more worthless in that future, relative to the guided missiles.
- ZanyProgrammer 13y agoI'm not sure this is really breaking news-old planes recycled as drones have been around for a while.
- ZanyProgrammer 13y agoHere's an example: http://www.f-106deltadart.com/drones.htm http://www.f-106deltadart.com/drones.htm
- stbullard 13y agoThis isn't as novel as this somewhat breathless article makes it out to be: same thing has been done with many retired Air Force planes, including the F-4 Phantom (drone/target version was redesignated QF-4). I do appreciate the Beeb's reaching out to the brilliantly-named Campaign to Stop Killer Robots for comment, however. Edit: here's a video of some F-15s blowing up QF-4s http://youtu.be/xISpZYajveA http://youtu.be/xISpZYajveA
- bri3d 13y agoUnless there's a new feature the story isn't letting on, they're not excessively robotic, either - more like an R/C F-16 where the pilot controls are replaced by a remote actuation system. Since the F-16 was purely fly-by-wire and computer stabilized anyway, the difference is where the commands are coming from - there's no additional algorithmic "magic" or computer-controlled decisionmaking power.
- swalsh 13y agoOf course communicating a signal good enough to remotely fly a plane going mach is an impressive feat.
- bri3d 13y agoOf course! But I'd say more like "was" - remote-controlled fighter planes have been around since at least the Airspeed Queen Wasp in the '30s (!!!), and those were arguably more complex to control remotely as the control systems weren't already directly run by computers. Plus the F-16 actually becomes more stable as its speed increases - at below-mach speeds, it's dynamically unstable and the aerodynamics are patched in by computer, but at mach speeds it becomes dynamically stable and will trend towards straight and level.
- bigiain 13y agoI don't think the fastest hobby RC guys are doing anything particularly different from regular RC builders, and they're up over MACH 0.8 now: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1609281 http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1609281 (Amusing fact-of-the-day - the fastest RC models in the world do not have motors. Specially built gliders flown in big winds on just the right shape hills can go a couple of hundred mph faster than even jet powered RC planes…)
- downandout 13y agoIt seems logical to me that this would have occurred long ago....I'm sort of stunned that it's just happening now. There is simply no reason to have humans in fighter planes or bombers these days, and retrofitting the old equipment should be relatively inexpensive. We should be retrofitting tanks and helicopters for this as well.
- wlesieutre 13y agoCommunications jamming maybe? If a remote pilot could get disconnected, having a local pilot would be more reliable.
- TomGullen 13y agoWhat good is a remote control tank if you throw a bucket of paint over its cameras. Pretty cheap way to render it useless.
- Jamiecon 13y agoIMO, war is nowhere near as clinical as it would need to be for remote controlled tanks, helicopters and other vehicles to be effective. I've just finished reading Generation Kill for the second time - I highly recommend it for an idea of what things are actually like.
- LoganCale 13y agoIt has been occurring for a long time. F-4s have been in use as remote controlled target drones for live fire exercises for quite a while.
- jotm 13y agoI think it's kind of useless even today without the controller very close by - flying a supersonic jet capable of 9G maneuvers remotely is way harder than a slow drone. The only way to do it well right now would be to have one human piloted jet (preferably with 2 pilots) as the wing leader and the autopilot ones following it and executing commands issued by those pilots.
- relic 13y ago
- Pr0metheus 13y agoI think Skynet maybe working on a similar project :)
- zokier 13y ago"I'm particularly worried about the high speed at which they can travel because they might not be able to distinguish their targets very clearly." I really don't understand what he is trying to say here.
- andrewcooke 13y agoif something moves at high speed then there is less time to evaluate a target. that means less information and a higher chance of errors.
- ars 13y agoThat's because he's not saying anything intelligent. Reporters sometime pressure a source to give them a negative sentence so they can bring balance to an article. It means nothing except that the reporter didn't want to seem one sided.
- geoffsanders 13y agoThis is hardly news. The Air Force recently ran out of the old F-4 Phantoms we used to use for target practice, so they've moved on to converting the aging (and plentiful) F-16 fleet. That's all.
- ckozlowski 13y agoPrecisely. These are what, Block 10s? They're the oldest in the fleet. I think what's catching attention is that the F-16 is in the active inventory, but a modern Block 50/52 is not the same as the original A's that rolled off the line in the 70s. These are not going to be used to bomb militants anytime soon. They don't have the capability to drop the weapons needed, and the costs to provide this capability (sensors and electronics upgrades) can be met with purpose-built drones at a fraction of the cost. It's like the same model car, only 10 years apart. They're technically the same name and lineage, but wildly different in terms of performance and capability. That's why we're blasting them.
- TomGullen 13y agoJust what modern warfare needs, even less proximity. Boeing like to say its for target practise but quite obviously its real life applications are far more violent. Powerful nations will be able to conduct warfare even more secretly (less witnesses and potential whistleblowers) and reduction in home casualty will allow them to conduct their wars for even longer. Can we really trust these countries to use this sort of technology responsibly? Clearly not. Interesting and clever technology but ultimately distasteful and sinister.
- kcen 13y agoIt takes just as many people to fly a robo-F16 as it does to fly a manned F16. Only difference is that the pilot is on the ground instead of in the air. Also the unmanned F16 provides 0 advantages over a purpose built UAV (plus is bigger, slower, and more expensive), I highly doubt anybody would seriously consider these for warfare applications. It's cool tech, take it at face value.
- DougWebb 13y agoI imagine it can carry a bigger payload, so there's that advantage. Apparently we have a bunch of them in storage too, so it might be cheaper to convert them than to build new UAVs. It must be, if they're cheap enough to use for live target practice. Better to turn them into UAVs than let them rust while we build new UAVs, or sell them to other countries.
- nols 13y agoI don't know how much bigger that payload will be. Assuming the components to turn it into a UAV weigh 0 lbs, you're talking about a ~160 lb pilot in a 26,000 lb jet.
- monkeypizza 13y agoYou are forgetting about all the life support systems that no longer need to be included / maintained. Oxygen tanks, ejector seat, etc.
- jotm 13y agoWell it's about damn time - pretty much all of our planes are capable of faster maneuvers without the pilot inside. This would make old planes useable on the battlefield again (recon, escort, decoys, you name it)... oh how useless the F35 program will be :-)...
- phy6 13y ago[peppy@starfox ~]$ ./barrel_roll.sh -dO -a
- themodelplumber 13y agoChina has a bunch of "UAV" versions of their J-6. Pretty cool looking without a cockpit. http://i.imgur.com/B9yXf.jpg http://i.imgur.com/B9yXf.jpg
- do-it-good 13y agoYeah, that system was beta-tested on 9/11.
- SchizoDuckie 13y agoSo technically... The Netherlands could still decide not to buy the Joint Strike Fighter, Rip some stouf out of our 'old' F16's, retrofit it with a souped-up PS4 and it can still go for miles and miles? That's going to get interesting in Dutch parliament...