The Unmanned Air Force

coondoggie writes "How important have unmanned aircraft become to the US military? Well how's this: the Air Force says next year it will acquire more unmanned aircraft than manned. Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip this week said the service is 'all in' when it comes to developing unmanned systems and aircraft. 'Next year, the Air Force will procure more unmanned aircraft than manned aircraft,' the general said. 'I think that makes a very pointed statement about our commitment to the future of [unmanned aircraft] and what it brings to the fight in meeting the requirements of combatant commanders.'"

Comments

Not surprising

[OverlordQ]

I don't have the numbers handy but I'm betting that they can get many unmanned aircraft for the cost of a single manned one.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious as to what the costs of training a single pilot are, and even more to see a comparison of the average pilot skills vs an AI pilot.

However, this sure screws my plans to corrupt the air force pilots to get them to bomb random sites I generally dislike.. hmm after reflection maybe a virus for this AI would be easier!

Re:Not surprising

[megaditto]

Right. But I'd imagine that's why we have the incredibly expensive stealth bombers: once the enemy air defences are down, it would really be much more cost effective to run the drones. The drones should cost less to run and would be cheaper to replace.

Re:Not surprising

[DustyShadow]

Do you even need AI if you can do low-latency remote control?

Yes. I say this because of the high number of Predator crashes that are always blamed on "pilot" error. Compare that to Global Hawk which has one crash (which was in a very early stage of the aircraft -- late 90s I think), which has a totally autonomous flight control. None of the deployed GHs have crashed. I don't know how many Predators have crashed but for awhile it seemed like I was hearing about them once every 2-3 months.

Re:Not surprising

[GooberToo]

I say this because of the high number of Predator crashes

Don't forget a number of these planes were actually downed from small arms fire. Even with full size aircraft, human error is often attributed to crashes when it really isn't a factor at all.

Example: A small, single engine plane on short final (low to the ground and slow airspeed) encounters wind sheer which forces it into the ground. Cause of crash may be, "Human error. Failure to maintain positive control of craft and while close to the ground. Failure to initiate a go-around." I'm not kidding, stuff like this is actually recorded in NTSB and/or FAA crash records. Of course it ignores the fact that it is impossible for some craft to escape wind sheer. And in fact, it has caused the crash of large, commercial jets before. The problem is serious enough commercial jets now have wind sheer detection systems on board and large airports now detect and report the condition.

Additionally, as many as a half dozen commericial jet crashes which were originally attributed to human error have since been determined to be attributed to humans actually doing things properly. In fact, in these cases, the cause of the crash was actually failed hydraulic valves causing the rudder to operate in reverse direction; meaning correct corrective action by humans actually cause the problem to become worse. Yet it's still dubbed, "Human error."

Long story short, don't get too caught up believing in "pilot error" claims.

Wait a second...

[DesScorp]

lets see

1 $400 million dollar F-22

10 $40 million dollar F-35

or

Where are you getting those figures? Your larger point... UAV's are cheap compared to manned fighters... still stands, but your figures for the manned fighters are off significantly. Your F-22 price is waaay to high, and ironically, the price for the F-35 is too low. No one really knows for sure, as Lockheed Martin and the Air Force fudges their financial figures on this, but the most credible figures for an F-22 is between $120 and $140 million a copy (flyaway cost), and at around $87 million per copy for an F-35A.

Both are wayyy to expensive, but at least the F-22 will do what it promises... dominate air-to-air battles. The F-35 is beginning to look like an expensive pig in a poke. If UAV's can become more and more capable (and stay cheap), you're right in that the trend of replacing some manned missions with unmanned planes will only accelerate.

Re:Jamming the communication system

[maeka]

True. Of course, the control station is also announcing its presence rather loudly ... the people we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have the tech to take advantage of this

Two things:
1 - the control station is only announcing its presence loudly if we assume non line-of-sight radio use. The CIA and USAF have been rapidly moving to LoS radio and laser communication (satellite bounced) for their UAVs. The control station may be in-theater or:
2 - there is no reason to park your control station anywhere near the battlefield. The USA is very capable of controlling their UAVs from the continental US, where no opponent outside Russia could likely strike.

That combined with the fact that the UAV software is quickly progressing to the point where you can "park" one over a target site and it can operate autonomously for long periods, only requesting human intervention when a "key event" is detected and there is little reason one pilot can not control an entire squadron.

Very Very Dangerous Ground We Tread Upon

[Bruha]

This is about as dangerous as Shinsheki's push for the lighter more mobile Army which was torn to shreds by IED's in Iraq and Afganistan.

If too much focus is put towards UAV's we'll end up with a manned Air Force that begins to put A2A combat second to UAV combat. What happens when we end up fighting a real war?

Capitalistic principles have no room in our military, if we cut corners we will someday pay for it.