Japan Plans To Build Unmanned Fighter Jets (reuters.com)

Slashdot reader It's the tripnaut! quotes an article from Reuters: Japan aims to develop a prototype drone fighter jet in two decades with private sector help in a technology strategy that focuses on weapons communications and lasers, according to a document seen by Reuters... The military technology plan calls for first developing an unmanned surveillance aircraft in the next decade and then an unmanned fighter jet 10 years later, the document showed...

The ministry will also allocate budget funds to acquire an upgraded version of the F-35 stealth fighter, made by U.S. company Lockheed Martin Corp...as tension rises in the East China Sea and North Korea steps up its missile threat, government officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Comments

Stealth

[AK Marc]

It could be great, it could not matter. One of the realities is that the current designs are not much stronger than the human body. Sure, they can pull 20g indefinitely, when the human can't, but a quick transition from -20g to +20g could cause structural failure. A plane with no delicate meat-sack inside would greatly out-perform the meat-sack, but not if it exceeds the airframe capabilities or performance envelope.

Re:Stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are dealing with war. Being nice is not part of the game. You crush you enemies. You do not mess around. You crush them subjugate them and take their things. Then for the icing make sure they will not rise up again you kill their children.

War is ugly. Don't try to put a humanitarian spin on it.

Re:Stealth

[FlyHelicopters]

It's bad enough when some military base thousands of kilometers again is bombed, but seeing your own cities rocked by explosions, the lights going out for days, death out of the blue, seemingly at random... Not so nice when it happens to you, whaddaya think?

I think the United States of America has the most powerful military in the world, along with several thousand nuclear weapons.

If another nation-state started to bomb our cities, the "war" wouldn't last very long...

Re:Stealth

[knightghost]

It must also transform into a humanoid robot. After all, this is Japan we're talking about.

Re:Stealth

[willy_me]

An expensive plane with a "meat-sack" does not only have to be built strong, it has to be built to last. This results in larger development times and costs. One big advantage to an autonomous fighters that is rarely mentioned is that it does not have to last long. The aircraft can be designed to last 100 flights, not 10,000. This is because the planes would sit silent until needed. With piloted fighters, the pilots need regular training and practice using the same planes with which they will be fighting. With autonomous fighters the planes would almost never fly. Regular duties such as patrol could be taken over by simpler planes with lower maintenance costs where the full capabilities of a modern fighter are not required.

Re:Stealth

[slashrio]

It's not 'another nation-state' that worries me as until now it's almost exclusively the US that initiates agression upon agression without proper provocation.

Re:Stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

You crush you enemies.

See them driven before you.

And hear the lamentations of their women.

Re: Stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

The most powerful nation in the world has been defeated in Vietnam, sent home packing in Somalia, defeated in Afghanistan, bled dry in Iraq... Shall I continue? And should Russia or China retaliate for drone strikes by using conventional bombs against a legitimate military target such as your capital, would you escalate to nuclear warfare knowing this would mean the death of a lot of your population and the destruction of the US as an industrial nation? I don't think so. Don't bite more than you can chew.

Re: Stealth

[peragrin]

To be fair Russia and China both have been bogged down in small conflicts as well.

The problem is political not military. The us military could have won in Vietnam if allowed to fire bomb civilian targets.

Trying to limit warfare to only military targets and win is like trying to arrest drug dealers. You can never get them all

Re: Stealth

[CrimsonAvenger]

The us military could have won in Vietnam if allowed to fire bomb civilian targets.

The US military didn't even need that. All they needed was permission to go into North Vietnam and beat the crap out of them.

Alas, the Korean War was still fresh in everyone's mind - when we rolled up North Korea, the Chinese came into the war. So, the various Presidents said "no invading North Vietnam".

And it's still pretty much true that if you give the enemy a safe space, the enemy CANNOT be beaten. If he's losing, he just pulls back into his safe space until he's ready to go another round....

Re:Stealth

[Rei]

The problem with stealth aircraft isn't finding a missile that can hit them. It's getting a reliable, targetable lock on them. You can detect stealth aircraft with low frequency radar, but you get a very poor quality return. Low frequency doesn't just make stealth aircraft more visible, it makes *everything* in the atmosphere more visible, including water vapour.

A good example of what it takes to shoot down a stealth aircraft with a low frequency radar can be seen in the one time it was accomplished, by the Serbs during the Kosovo conflict. The airplane flew right over their position almost every day. Even with it right overhead, they still couldn't target it most of the time. The time that they finally got it, it was right overhead and had its bomb bay doors open, significantly increasing its visibility.

And this was with an old generation of stealth aircraft.

No country in the world wants to have this much difficulty hitting their adversaries targets. Is the problem solveable? Probably eventually. Is it solved now? Very doubtful. As good evidence to that effect, look at how much money Russia has been throwing into their antiaircraft systems - first modernizing the S-300, then introducing the S-400, and now developing the S-500. Much of Russia's military struggles for funding (look at the sad state of their only aircraft carrier, for example, or their struggle to bring tanks like the Armata or planes like the MiG-35 into full production), but air defense gets tons of money. If they had actually solved the stealth problem and felt that they could reliably shoot down US stealth aircraft, they wouldn't be focusing so heavily on it.

Re:Stealth

[Rei]

Could you remind me again, which nation is building military bases on internationally disputed islands that they lost the judgement for, and which nation recently annexed a part of one of its' neighbors and is waging a constant low-level war in a large chunk of said country's east while propping up one of the most brutal dictators in the middle east by white phosphorus and cluster bombing its cities?

Not that I'm a huge fan of the US either, but come on now....

Re:Stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is that a business for the USA, with already more than 800 military bases in more than 100 countries the world over?

Um, let's see, most populous country, nuclear power, major economic force. It's pretty dumb to ignore them.

At least the Chinese haven't killed anybody yet, unlike the USA did with millions (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Irak, Lybia, to name a few countries), and by the way was the first country to deploy, totally unnecessary if you ask me as the Japanese were already surrendering, 2 A-bombs with devastating results for the civilian populations involved.

Come on now.

Wow, the Chinese haven't killed anybody yet? What have you been smoking? Even leaving aside the massive famines that Mao's policies resulted in, there's been plenty of executions for political repression, an invasion of Tibet, disputes with China, Pakistan, and even the USSR that have resulted in loss of life.

And whining about civilian deaths from A-Bombs? If you're going to stand on principle, stand against all bombing, whether it be the Blitz, Dresden, or whatever, don't pretend that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were special because of the methods involved. And like it or not, even if the US had refrained from that option, conventional bombing would have continued because the Japanese didn't understand the need to surrender. They fucked up badly since their previous war was with a power that wasn't seriously angry at all the fucked up shit the Axis powers were doing.

Re: Stealth

[guestapoo]

Hanoi, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh were all destroyed during bombing operators. HCM trail have no civilian target.
John McCain was shot down while bombing a lightbulb factory.

It's misleading that Vietnam war was a guerrilla warfare, in fact it's was serial of battles to capture/defense positions, areas, with participation of large number of soldiers and weapons, between U.S and NVA (not VC).
There's a myth of U.S military won all battles but lost due to politics.
Also, there's problem with statistic, such as using "body counting" as a measure of "victory".

Re:Stealth

[tsotha]

That "800 bases" thing is bogus. If you look at the list the vast, vast majority are small detachments of men working at a base belonging to the host country. Five guys tasked with training F-16 mechanics in BFE do not constitute a "base".

Re:Stealth

[guestapoo]

Of course, the sanction have some effects (such as, some technologies instead of buying/corporation with, e.g. France, now they must develop themselves). But not terrible as media showed, such as, the foods price, or people being starved. Their agriculture booms, and surpassed the weapons industry.
As I said, some report tried to show that Russians have cut "something" in dollars, not in rouble - which is weaker in recent years.

If you read Russian (I don't but I read using Yandex/Google translator), I could say that Russian technologies are underrated. Of course, they acknowledged that they are behind Western in many areas, or are "reinventing the wheel", but the progress is very positive.
China is a different story, Russia is likely, they have know-how but lack of motive (but, not now with sanctions) and money. China have motives and money but lack some key technologies that could not fill without "great leap-forward", such as, they have tried to develop jet engine for more than 30 years but the result is still in doubt.

About Armata, OK, one of them got glitch. But I see the broader scene, the consequence of Armata is the merger of two famous German and French tank manufactures.

About PAK-FA, in 80's-90's, not mention the budget of Russia after the collapse of Soviet. The mindset of Soviet airforce was protect the land, they needed super fast fighters, not somethings stealthy enter enemy base and drop bombs. All the Soviet bombers/fighters followed this trend.
In fact when Russian began to develop "5th" fighter plane, here is what they think:
1) for protect "motherland", 5th fighters are not needed.
2) Russia is a #2 arms exporter, they need to keep their market/buyers
3) does not want to fall behind in technology.

The deadline of development only move to 2020 for Indian version for mass production. It said that in early 2009 they would introduced three prototype, but then actually in early 2010, by traditional Soviet fighter producing process, it took about 5 years from maiden flight to final product, and they would test with new engine with the prototype when everything is OK.