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

Re:Not surprising

[vux984]

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

You do if your opponent has some sort of communications jamming technology.

About time.

[jcr]

For decades now, the limit to fighter aircraft performance has been human endurance.

-jcr

Re:About time.

[Bios_Hakr]

For years, "fighters" really haven't been doing A2A combat. Most (all?) of these are employed as bombers. And fighter/bombers are limited by airframe, not the pilot.

And when it comes to bombing, unmanned aircraft are just better. One can orbit at high altitude and lase targets while others come in lower and drop GBUs all over the target. If a few get shot down, no big deal.

Set up an INS with a gyroscope and trigger that to the proposed flight path and set the bomb to detonate if the plane veers off course. If a few blow up in the air, no big deal. Better than having one go "unguided" and hit whatever.

Forget calling in air strikes for CAS roles. The soldiers on the front can launch their own RPVs for some stuff. And for other missions, it'll be cost effective to have a wing of escorts accompany the troops. If they are attacked, the UCAVs can come down in seconds and drop munitions.

Forget the traditional role of air dominance. We can just send hundreds of UCAVs for every piloted vehicle the enemy has. He can't possibly shoot them all down. And in the opening days of the war, we'll blanket all the enemy runways with thousands of UCAVs anyway. Bomb the shit out of the runways and then loiter to take out any combat engineers trying to fix it.

The greatest thing is the manpower use. One pilot can update the INS for hundreds of UCAVs. Then, they just fly themselves. Once over the target, one pilot can take a single UCAV out of loiter and hit targets all night. Or, 20 pilots can be re-directed to engage in "shock and awe" while their former flights loiter.

Pilots will be working 8-hour shifts with 15 minute breaks every hour. They will even be able to take lunch. They can do their job from Utah or Maryland or Colorado without every having to deploy to Iraq. They won't have to be in perfect physical shape to fly. Bum knee on a great pilot; no problem.

Re:Not surprising

[jcr]

No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.

Except for all of the air-to-air missiles, which are UAVs of a sort.

-jcr

Re:Among insiders this is a well-known phenomenon.

[chadenright]

In order for unmanned, remote control aircraft to fully replace manned aircraft 3 things have to happen:

*Reaction time for the remote pilot must equal or exceed that of an in-the-air pilot.
*Data the remote pilot has access to must equal or exceed that of an in-the-air pilot.
*Counter-counter measures must ensure that the remote pilot is always in control of the craft.

In order for self-guided robotic aircraft to replace live pilots the following must happen:

*Reaction speed must equal or exceed that of human pilots.
*Appropriateness of reaction must equal or exceed that of human pilots.
*Counter-counter measures must ensure that the robot cannot act against its creator body (IE, it can neither be subverted, nor rebel).

Re:Not surprising

[qbzzt]

No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.

On a one to one basis, maybe no. But what about a ten to one basis? UAVs are a lot cheaper, and a lot more expendable.

If you can occupy the enemy's airforce with some UAVs, while others bombard the airstrips, you win.

Re:Not surprising

[Odin The Ravager]

No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning yet.

there, fixed that for you

Re:Remote or AI?

[DougF]

The Reaper, Predator and smaller UAVs are controlled by humans sitting either at the operating base for takeoffs and landings, or somewhere else for the mission. The Global Hawk is autonomous, but can be remotely piloted. FAA requirements are that an unmanned vehicle must be remotely piloted over US airspace, or escorted by aircraft capable of shooting it down should it develop a mind of its own. As for not bombing civilians, if someone would convince the bad guys to quit hiding in civilian neighborhoods, homes, crowds, etc., we'd be quite happy to not inflict collateral damage in the process of killing said bad guys. As for cost effectiveness, although cheaper to buy, they crash a lot more. Mishap rates for the Global Hawk and Predator are much higher than for manned aircraft. Add to the the fact that in-flight support costs (ground stations, bandwidth, satellite time, etc) can be much higher for unmanned vehicles than for a manned fighter/bomber, means the debate on which is more cost effective, manned or unmanned, will be going on for some time.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

lets see

1 $400 million dollar F-22

10 $40 million dollar F-35

or

  100 $4 million dollar UAV's

yea the math speaks volumes. UAV's can target and back up ground troops but no UAV has done air to air combat. No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning. If not for local ECM(jammers in other aircraft) screwing up the flight controls, then the simple fact that the manned aircraft can turn their head and see the planes over their shoulder let alone behind them.

From someone who used to fly them... There is something called a UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle).

As a matter of *FACT*, the X45A shot down the top pilots over and over from the Airforce's topgun school in games of lasertag. The UCAV can pull a 12G turn in a dogfight. Most humans can't stay conscious in 8Gs and the human limit before passing out is 10G.

A UCAV vs a manned F22 is like shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_Combat_Air_Vehicle

Re:Not surprising

[pushing-robot]

One hell of a jamming technology to block the laser to satellite communication of a high-altitude plane.

Yes, the level of technology required would be ridiculous.