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Fighter Pilots Face A Dismal Future
- MikeCapone 17y agoThanks for posting this, very interesting. More stuff like this on HN please.
- Dilpil 17y agoI would really like to see a competition where teams write opposing AIs for UAVs and the UAVs duke it out.
- pmorici 17y agoI reality it would probably be more like how the software for voting machines is developed. In secret by large companies who's only specialty is doing anything they can get the government to cough up money for.
- ericd 17y agoThere are actually already some UAV AI competitions that accept student teams, though they're typically not competing in a dogfighting sense, more in a "follow a path, search for an object like x and take a picture of it", etc.
- zygy 17y agoThat's interesting, would you mind pointing me to an example of such a competition?
- mikedouglas 17y agoFor those in the aerospace industry, are we seeing any movement towards unmanned commercial airplanes? Are the impediments mostly technical or social? Any rough timelines?
- mynameishere 17y agoI'm pretty sure that commercial aircraft are about 99 percent unmanned at present.
- teuobk 17y agoIndeed. As shown by the recent distracted-pilots-flew-past-Minneapolis fiasco, modern planes have become so automated that one of the biggest problems for pilots is fighting boredom: http://www.startribune.com/local/68083742.html http://www.startribune.com/local/68083742.html
- ojbyrne 17y agoAnd from reading Philip Greenspun's blog, pilot's salaries are reflecting that reality. It's heading towards a minimum wage job.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- randallsquared 17y agoThere's probably too little freight to justify development of an unmanned commercial plane. I think the trivial advantages for passenger planes would be outweighed by the misdirected incentives. :)
- evgen 17y agoThere are several problems for an unmanned commercial airplane. None of them are insurmountable, but they add up to making it easy to see how this will probably be the last sector that gets automated. In a combat aircraft the advantages for getting rid of the pilot are numerous: less weight & volume for the pilot and their associated support kit, eliminating the pilot allows for plane geometries that are just not possible with a human onboard, eliminating the pilot enables maneuvers that would turn a pilot to jelly, etc. The pilot is probably the most expensive component of a combat aircraft. Eliminating the pilot opens up new mission profiles (e.g. you don't have to worry too much about the aircraft getting back to base.) For a commercial aircraft the benefits of going unmanned are not as pronounced and in some cases are non-existent. In addition to the lack of benefits, you introduce additional costs related to liability (you can always blame pilot error for a problem, but if there is no pilot then it is the airlines fault for either not maintaining the system properly or for selecting the system in the first place) and the fact that passengers are not going to trust this system anytime soon. The impediments are almost completely social, but the benefits are so slight that it does not make much sense to bother aiming for completely unmanned. What you are going to see (and in fact what has been happening for years now) is the increasing automation of cockpit tasks. There will always be a human being "at the controls" for the forseeable future, but what that actually means and how much active control they are exercising is going to be slowly changing.
- kiba 17y agoI wonder how would you repell a state with sophisticated robot terminators war machines. Lawn-motor robots? Perhaps arduino-controlled pistol gun with belt feed bullets? I am worried about the future ability of a population's to resist a technological tyranny.
- rms 17y agoIn the USA at least, the population has been completely unable to resist the state since the Civil War.
- philwelch 17y agoHow do you figure that? The Civil War demonstrated nothing of the kind. It only showed that if you split both the populace and the military establishment in two, the side that has more railroads, factories, and soldiers is going to win.
- nuclear_eclipse 17y agoI think the fact that the National Guard consists of nothing but fewer, lesser-trained soldiers with aging, outdated weapons/technology is a pretty good indicator that the population would never be able to take on the full might of the federal military branches.
- gaius 17y agoTwo words: Posse Comitatus
- krakensden 17y agoWhy do you think it would work like that? The model would probably be the IRA and gang warfare, not defined territory and set piece battles...
- philwelch 17y agoThe full might of the federal military had trouble with Iraqis and Vietnamese.
- alexgartrell 17y agoI feel like my eventual children, or maybe my children's children, will see a world where Americans don't go to was physically (or at least in large numbers). This whole war thing is going to be really weighted against the poorer countries who have to leave real people to die. I see terrorist tactics (blowing up buildings, schools, etc.) as dominating their efforts. That said, I think that if I were to do a defense startup now, it'd be towards detecting explosives, guns, etc. in large groups of people. If that technology falls behind, war's about to get a whole lot uglier.
- rms 17y agoI see my children's children living in a world without war. Articles like this are interesting, but a little sickening in that they assume that continually increasing defense spending is actually a good idea. I'd work for Swoopo long before I would work for a defense startup.
- pmorici 17y ago"I see my children's children living in a world without war." Do you honestly believe that? I don't see how it's even possible unless we sedate everyone in some kind of matrix like false utopian state. It's good to dream though.
- pg 17y agoDoesn't seem impossible. Within Western Europe that is close to a reality now, after endless centuries of war.
- ericd 17y agoTrue, but the environment in Western Europe is very different from that of the rest of the world, and it's not clear that we can scale up the conditions of Western Europe to 6 billion people, at least with present tech, and especially if we're nearing peak oil. If peak oil is true, I would predict quite the opposite.
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- staunch 17y agoor Software Developers for UAVs Face An Exciting Future It's fun to imagine that somewhere sometime a scrawny geek told a chiseled-jaw pilot "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script"
- mahmud 17y agoNot really. 200 software developers can write the code for every piece of flying drone that the U.S. has. While pilots where employed almost 1:1 for each piece of aircraft. Not to mention all the crew, flight controllers and maintenance people; I don't think a drone undergoes the same rigorous safety checks and standards as a manned plane. And as the military depends on more drone, the cheaper they will become.
- nir 17y agoOne interesting development is that, with the growing number of UAVs, there aren't enough pilots to fly them all, so new operators are no longer required to have flying experience. I heard an interview with "Wired for War"'s author who claimed that controls for some of these systems are modeled after X-box/PlayStation controls, both to capitalize on the ergonomics research done by console makers and to make it easier for young recruits who are already used to operating them.
- schleyfox 17y agohttp://bigthink.com/pwsinger/pw-singer-on-video-games-and-war http://bigthink.com/pwsinger/pw-singer-on-video-games-and-wa... indeed.
- jjwiseman 17y ago"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_of_Lisa_Simpson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_of_Lisa_Simpson)
- rdtsc 17y agoI am sure at the end of the 19th century horse drawn carriage makers faced a dismal future as well. Some professions simply die down and become irrelevant. Interestingly enough this already happened to the Airforce in the late 60s. Airforce was running manned spy satellite missions, but because of the cost and the danger involved, those missions were being canceled in favor of unmanned satellite missions. So this is basically a repeat for Airforce.
- _ck_ 17y agoMaybe we can spend the trillions from fighter jets and pilot training on health care? The war machine expenditure in the USA is more than EVERY OTHER country on earth COMBINED (and it's deficit spending). The problem is the war machine is always chomping at the bit to get into a war so they can use their toys. Did you know Japan has a military? And they are protesting against their constitution which prevents them from getting involved in other wars. They WANT to go to war, somewhere, anywhere. It's crazy.
- davi 17y agoThis is the beginning of a long-term trend, from a physically present combat force to an army of remote teleoperators.
- radu_floricica 17y agoNope. Fighter planes are a special case because they're both significantly cheaper and with better performance without a pilot on board. I don't see infantry replaced any time soon.
- gaius 17y agoWriter Lewis Page points out that the Infantry are the only branch of the military who can do something other than blow stuff up from a distance. Demand for that type of operation is only going to increase. Meanwhile the UK govt is cutting Infantry battalions and investing 10s of billions of GBP in Eurofighter and Nimrod. Because the Taliban's airforce and submarine fleet are obviously the biggest threats we face... Note also that it's only the USAF who require trained pilots to operate UAVs... Everyone else uses automated landing systems (etc) and regular troops fly them. It's one of the featured jobs in the British Army's recruiting campaign, there's a guy with a handset similar to an Xbox controller scouting ahead of his unit as they patrol.
- WilliamLP 17y agoYes, and after that, we'll have to start teaching ourselves multiplication again, so we can develop a manned plane that can break the stalemate that software will get into:)
- pibefision 17y agoDoes anyone knows what kind of operating system UAVs have?
- gaius 17y agoVxWorks: http://www.electronicstalk.com/news/wia/wia277.html http://www.electronicstalk.com/news/wia/wia277.html
- Dove 17y agoTypically. Occasionally you hear about one running Linux.
- jordanb 17y agoThey would never use Linux for Avionics, because it would be far too expensive to get such a large and complex system certified for that kind of work. Commercial planes use linux for non-critical functions like the in-flight entertainment. I can't think of anything that would be on a fighter plane that would be considered "non-critical" enough to not require a high-integrity system though.
- Dove 17y agoVxworks is typical, but Linux does happen sometimes. Most often for ground stations or auxiliary tools, sometimes for continuity between the development and deployed environment, sometimes because it's just a research project and certification isn't an issue. I wouldn't claim it's common or that you'd be likely to see it in a deployed environment, but it's not totally unheard of. Throw Linux & UAV in Google - you'll see what I mean.
- gaius 17y agoVxWorks isn't self hosting - the development may well be done on Linux. I've definitely seen Linux (re?)booting on in-flight entertainment systems.
- cesare 17y agoPosted a related link a couple of weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=898214 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=898214
- marcofloriano 17y ago"t's not just that most of the those American air force generals began their careers as fighter pilots. No, the reason is more practical. American air superiority has largely been the result of superior pilots. The U.S. didn't always have the best aircraft, but they always had the most talented and resourceful pilots. And that's what gave the U.S. its edge. Will that translate to software piloted fighters? Research to date seems to indicate it will." I really need some real non-american references to believe in such a thing.
- gaius 17y agoIn WW2 German fighters were technologically superior. In Korea Russian MiGs were superior (the Sidewinder missile was developed specifically to combat MiGs that could cruise at an altitude American fighters couldn't reach, swoop down to attack, then return to safe altitude). Even in the Cold War, the MiG-25 could out-run any American fighter. Whether the quality of American pilots was decisive in any of those conflicts is debatable, but the first part is certainly true. Many observers believe the Eurofighter Typhoon to be the most advanced fighter in the world today.
- defen 17y agoWell, he's an American, but there is a 2-part blog post here that details some of the reasons American pilots were better: http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2008/01/01/forty-second-boyd-and-the-big-picture-part-1/ http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2008/01/01/forty-sec... If nothing else you'll learn about John Boyd, one hell of a model American.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago"Talented and resourceful"isn't quite right. What the US has generally had, though, was the best trained pilots and feedback. When the kill ratio starts favoring the enemy, the US has typically analyzed the problem and improved training. I referenced Top Gun and Beyond in an earlier post: if you can find the video, it goes into this.
- nir 17y agoThere was an excellent article in Esquire on UAVs, which focused on the daily lives of UAV operators: http://www.esquire.com/features/unmanned-aircraft-1109-2 http://www.esquire.com/features/unmanned-aircraft-1109-2 Pretty amazing stuff. Most missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are flown via satellite from the US, truly remote controlled war. (Submitted it to HN at the time, but it only got 2 points ;))
- stanleydrew 17y agoThis is a great article from the Atlantic profiling air force pilots and the F-22: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/air-force http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/air-force.
- ajb 17y agoSooner or later someone will make one cheap enough for police forces to buy. We ought to put some thought into whether that is going to be a good thing in the long run. On the plus side: - faster response to 911 calls, since UAVs can avoid traffic, and if cheap enough, they could be salted about the place in a powered off state. - less need for police to risk their lives, and consequently better policing of gang-ridden areas. On the minus side: - police become (even more) disconnected from the general public, potentially developing a culture of impunity - spread of surveillance - risk of abuse - risk of (black hat) hacking
- gills 17y agoAs someone who's worked with these systems, we faced quite a bit of this pilot-as-luddite resistance at first. Unfortunately this article doesn't really capture that many pilots are thankful that some flying computer will get blown away by a popup SA-6, rather than them. Nor does it convey that, while batches of UAVs can perform complicated tasks autonomously, they have not yet achieved air dominance.
- gaius 17y agoWhen I worked in the City we came across a lot of trader-as-luddite resistance to new software too. Many feared being automated out of jobs. Those who got with the programme tho' found they were able to single-handedly managed more complex positions. I think we'll see the same sort of thing here, perhaps a single pilot with the right technology (controlling multiple UAVs?) will be able to carry out a mission that would previously have taken an entire squadron. As the article says, the Pentagon can buy UAVs faster than it can train fully-qualified fighter pilots.
- peregrine 17y agoThe article states that countries that want to attack the US are excited about this. The article forgets to mention that the US is doing most of the research into this field.
- gaius 17y agoThere's no data to support that. Who knows what China or India is working on? Even Iran is in this game.
- gloob 17y agoWhile you are correct that we don't have any actual information to show that in this thread, it would seem plausible (if you compare the amount of money that the U.S. spends on research and the air force vs. e.g. Iran) that America's doing most of the heavy lifting here.
- asciilifeform 17y agoRemote-controlled war planes will probably return to being thought of as a niche/specialist weapon after the first time they are launched against an enemy with some actual engineering know-how. (Consider battery/solar-powered Tesla coils lofted on weather balloons, by the hundreds. Hell, spoofing GPS will probably do the trick.) Any signal can be jammed - especially a critically real-time one.
- ugh 17y agoGiven good enough automation, critical real-time signals will become unnecessary.
- asciilifeform 17y agoBarring Strong AI, the ultimate command to fire will remain under human (remote) control. Navigation also requires a radio signal (unless you can shrink the mechanical inertial guidance system used in submarines to a flyable size; this is not only difficult but would likely raise the cost of the drones to heights extraordinary even by US military standards.)
- ghshephard 17y agoNavigation does not require a radio system. Terrain Contour Matching aided by by Inertial Navigation Systems allows for fully autonomous navigation - They had this working with 1970s era Technology (Try and recall what a computer was like in the Mid 1970s and continue to be amazed at what engineers could get to work in a missile) It was a big deal in Canada in the Late 80s/Early 90s - the United States used to test their (hopefully unarmed) cruise missiles over Canada - presumably we had a terrain profile that was useful to them. Or maybe it was the long stretches of unpopulated environment. Now consider what your typical iPhone would be capable of doing. (Compass, GPS, Terrain Maps, Camera, Radio Signal...)
- joeycfan 17y agoI think the Korean War will turn out to have been the golden age of the fighter pilot.
- joeycfan 17y agoAlso there is no way a program would have pulled off that 'land in the hudson river' thing that guy did a while back. Everyone would have died on a computer plane.