Mixed Feelings

[kham]

Not sure what to make of this

The Most Important X-47B Pic of the Day


I am sure the cheetos brigade are thrilled, but the comment that stood out to me was how the most basic jammer going active on their comm and control freqs make them go somewhere between stupid and apeshit. And Jamming ALWAYS can get more powerful. There are some good ideas to be sure, but unless you get the combat versions down to dirt-cheap prices and treat them like cylon raiders (eg - utterly expendable) this aint gonna work. If the damned things just as expensive, then you may as well have those organo-computer interface flight suit inserts.

[Mynock]

There are two major advantages I can see to keeping the pilot on the ground. For one it keeps the most expensive and hard to produce component of the aircraft out of harms way. Two, now that an overly delicate primate isn't part of the payload you can increase the performance to levels never before conceived. You can fly that thing in ways that would kill a human pilot and the airframe wouldn't give a single fuck. And if you did overstress it who cares? Oops the wing fell off. No worries I'll just plug into this replacement that's circling just outside the combat zone and get right back in there.
We're seeing the technology in its infancy.....they're only going to become more capable as time goes on. Cheetos munching gamers may not as be as romantic as the Red Baron but having extra lives in combat is one hell of an edge over the competition.

[kham]

Right now, ACM is a non-starter for by remote control. Now, the powerpoint warriors are tut tut tutting that, since its 1960 again and dammit, dont you know dogfighting is dead? Are you stupid or what? How dare you contradict Admiral Duckface here!

Again, the problem is cost -- make these things dirt cheap, and controlled from deck, or the backseat of an F-18E/F and you may be on to something. And rack, pack and stack 'em. You CANNOT trade 1-1 on deck space with existing aircraft, that has epic fail written all over it. Make this work, and swarm tactics with smart and brilliant weapons, and the PLAAF will get wiped out of existence in the first pass.

Oh, and wouldnt it have been nice if the geniuses -in-chief had kept the F-14Ds around? Wouldnt THAT have made an ideal control bird.....

[Mynock]

Totally agree, perfect the design, churn them out at the rate of a dozen w day on automated assembly line. A big piece of the cost of each machine is the fact that they're all hand built one at a time. Don't have to do it that way anymore if quality isn't as big an issue because someone's life no longer necessarily depends on it.
Three drone fighters one manned fighter......the non-terminator is basically fucked.