F-16 fighter converted to drone

Kids aspiring to become fighter pilots just had their hopes and dreams crushed that little bit more, after Boeing successfully converted an F-16 Fighting Falcon into a pilot-less aircraft. The newly-designated QF-16 had been retired by the US Air Force before Boeing acquired it, restored it airworthy condition and rigged it up …

[Kharkov]

And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

This may well be the wave of the future for combat aircraft. Fighters have now reached the point where they can turn tightly enough to generate very high levels of G for long periods of time. Pilots, subject to blacking out even with G-suits, can no longer match the aircraft's performance.

Cue the VR-helmets for the ground-side pilot and hope to heaven that your data-link is secure enough and strong enough to keep you in touch. If it isn't, then Iran may get a few new aircraft landing at their airports...

[Anonymous Coward]

Drone pilots can now get bravery awards!

[TheVogon]

"target practise"

An organisation renting them out as targets? Or did you mean target practice?

[Yesnomaybe]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

"Fighters have now reached the point where they can turn tightly enough to generate very high levels of G for long periods of time. Pilots, subject to blacking out even with G-suits, can no longer match the aircraft's performance."

G suits are good, and have held back the point where humans are holding back the fighter planes performance, but it would appear we are reaching that point now. So how about submersing the pilot in a saline solution, in a tank in the cockpit. Would that work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

That's an awful lot of extra weight there - pilot plus fluid plus tank. It might work (although I suspect the whole plane would need a redesign to accomodate the bulk) but the performance loss would be an issue. Consider, too, the problems with ejecting.

[Katie Saucey]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

"Consider, too, the problems with ejecting."

I would assume that's what the cork in the floor is for.

[Ugotta B. Kiddingme]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

major drawback to that idea is weight. That much saline isn't exactly light and the added weight will affect performance, moderately at the very least. Then, of course, there is the radical redesign of existing cockpits - frightfully expensive in a time of tightening budgets.

While I do not doubt your idea COULD/WOULD work, I seriously doubt it WILL be used due to expense. Until "broken" to one degree or another, RPVs and autonomous aircraft are the future.

[Dodgy Geezer]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Why a saline solution? You weren't thinking of pumping it INTO the pilot's veins, were you? And it would be pretty corrosive when the inevitable leaks happen...

A more sensible fluid would be a low-viscosity oil

[Turtle]

How about... Breathable Liqiuds?

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

[Pookietoo]

Re: Would that work?

No it wouldn't work, even if it didn't weigh so much - the problem is acceleration, buoyancy won't fix that. Variable anti-grav would work a treat ...

[JLV]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

good question. I think not.

First, that would be a big and hefty saline tank, adding substantial weight. Second, you can probably kiss a good deal of instrument/control tactile sensitivity if the pilot is in a wetsuit and the instruments need to be waterproof.

(educated guess below. programmer, not aeronautical eng)

Most important though - the acceleration forces would remain substantially the same. If you are pulling 10g downward in a dry cockpit, you'd still be @ 10g sitting in a tank doing the same maneuver. It's not about keeping your skin/body from crushing into a chair that's a problem - the tank might help there - it's about managing your blood flow. So what's sitting outside your skin doesn't matter much, your blood is still pulled around @ 10g. A pressure suit applies pressure to constrain the blood flow, different thing.

[Tom 38]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Hyperbole much? This is still a human driving the machine, he's just not sitting on top of it any more.

[Black Rat]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken..

Hyperbole? In the event of direct command/control signal loss, degredation or deliberate interference some elements such as basic flight controls & navigation will have to be capable of autonomous operation till the human can be re-inserted back into the loop. From a military viewpoint it would also make sense that the aircraft be able to defend itself during this vulnerable period. It's not a great leap from that to letting it fly the complete mission by itself.

[Tom 38]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken..

In the event of direct command/control signal loss, degredation or deliberate interference some elements such as basic flight controls & navigation will have to be capable of autonomous operation till the human can be re-inserted back into the loop. From a military viewpoint it would also make sense that the aircraft be able to defend itself during this vulnerable period. It's not a great leap from that to letting it fly the complete mission by itself.

From a military viewpoint, sure. From a computer science viewpoint, it might as well be trying to fly to the moon in a Skoda Octavia. "Not crashing" simply means maintaining the horizon, which is a task given to 1st year computer science students studying computer vision (I still have the code if you are interested). "Autonomously identify and engage enemy combatants" is an altogether different board game.

tl;dr - Its only "not a great leap" if you are completely devoid of engineering experience and think like a an army General.

[Kharkov]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Hyperbole? Don't worry too much about (supposed to be) humourous titles.

Immersing the pilot in a tank of liquid to improve G-performance? Sounds good, in theory.

Anyone remember the Gerry Anderson show UFO? The aliens' suits were filled with a liquid and presumably their ships were too. It wasn't stated in the show, I think, but they'd handle G-loads better.

More seriously, the weight of the liquid (and the tank) would be prohibitive, too much aircraft performance would be lost. Even worse, most pilots are some way ahead of the center of gravity so a big tank full of liquid so far forward would really bugger up the aircraft's balance.

[jaduncan]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Why involve a pilot at all?

[Monty Burns]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

We Brit's created Skynet decades ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_%28satellite%29

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Ghost X-9 anybody?

[WraithCadmus]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

"Ghost X-9"

But where would we find a pilot?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24107790

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

I feel it can lead to more than that.

"This may well be the wave of the future for combat aircraft"

IMHO this may be the 'first step' to what all too many politicos and governments want: ubiquitous warfare.

One of the major reasons war is not consistently played out upon the world stage is troop casualties, the fact that your own people will die while they kill your enemies. The social & political repercussions of the possible deaths on their own side cause the $*!% old men in charge to take a breath before they say "Attack!"

Robotic weapons of mass destruction? The selfish old men will then get to say "None of our [boys] gets hurt so let's hit them early, where it counts!" Eternal, unending war because all the deaths are by glorious, insulated remote control.

Science fiction writers - hell, even our own generals - have warned us about the anonymization of the violence of warfare for centuries. From Orwell to Star Trek (A Taste of Armageddon) to General Robert E. Lee ("It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it") - once you remove the "terrible" from war, you will find that human beings will use it even more frequently to suit their agendas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Three observations

1. G Suit no good against red out (negative G manuvers)

2. Switch on the jammers, and smart drone becomes dumb bot.

3. The US Mil has a history of failing to switch on the security (e.g, Taliban watching US drone feed, as discovered when US patrol realised the picture on their feed looked just the same as the one on the computer they just captured, for some reason the bad guys managed to get out ahead of the patrol!)

[Nate Amsden]

Re: And the first step towards Skynet has been taken...

Perhaps just a side effect of the design...

But I saw a documentary a few years back on the F22, and one of the pilots mentioned how the F22 will actively prevent a pilot from pulling too many Gs -- not to protect the pilot -- but to protect the long term health of the air frame itself.

I suppose perhaps without a pilot they could of devoted more resources to an even more sturdy build so it could do more.. or make a much cheaper plane so that it doesn't matter if the airframe degrades quicker since it would be more disposable..

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

There will be no reason for human fighter pilots in a decade or so. But there will still be human fighter pilots, because some of today's fighter pilots will eventually be generals sitting in the Pentagon deciding where to spend all the billions congress gives them to waste invest in our defense.

They will twist logic however much it has to be twisted to claim that humans are still needed behind the controls of fighters, despite the fact that they'll cost far more because they'll need to protect fragile humans. As a result we won't have very many of them.

I suspect a lot of flyboys will be in denial about the obsolescence of manned fighters until a real war is fought by manned fighters against an enemy who overwhelms the super high tech manned stealth fighters with hordes of small disposable drones that don't waste money on unnecessary features like stealth or arms but can sustain many more Gs than a manned fighter and simply impact their targets.

Sort of like how many cavalry officers were in denial about how tanks made cavalry obsolete until Rommel showed them the error of their ways.

[LarsG]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

I have a pilots licence, it is obvious that you do not, so believe me when I say human interaction is still necessary in the sky rather than from an armchair.

Situational awareness can never be inputted in code.

Plonker.

[Khaptain]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

LarsG, you appear to be forgetting the most important factor - Pilots in the sky can only lose once........

[M Gale]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

Not just that, but a catastrophic loss of remote control could possibly end up with the aircraft making a dead-reckoning (assuming GPS has been jammed) return to safety, all by itself. It only needs to be so accurate to get back to a friendly area, then either command can be restored, or the aircraft can self destruct upon depletion of fuel. Or, just maybe, the aircraft can crashland somewhere flat and open and at least be partly salvageable.

It's not like a few people with some garden shed engineering can't build a small-scale craft that can return to base under autonomous control. The current SPB project seems to be shaping up in exactly that direction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

And that's a good incentive to fight better.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

I have a pilots licence,

But do you fly aircraft where most of your situational awareness comes from high-tech equipment all around you, and the view out the windscreen counts for very little? In that scenario having the pilot remote makes a lot less difference.

The biggest problem I've heard of in that situation is that the remote pilots get "seasick" because their body's sensory input doesn't match what they're seeing via the FR display. Presumably training can help there, at least for some people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

SA comes from high-end equipment as long as your target is out of sight. When it comes close to you, all your high-tech equipment becomes almost useless - and you would need a fairly complex 360° 3D system to remote fight in such a situation. Same when engagement rules ask you to identify your target visually.

[Cryo]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

"SA comes from high-end equipment as long as your target is out of sight. When it comes close to you, all your high-tech equipment becomes almost useless - and you would need a fairly complex 360° 3D system to remote fight in such a situation. Same when engagement rules ask you to identify your target visually."

That doesn't seem like something that would be a problem at all with existing technology. A "360° 3D system" is not something that would be prohibitively complex. It would simply involve taking multiple camera inputs and piecing them together into a single surround image. With multiple sensor domes on top of and below the aircraft, you could obtain a view in literally any direction from a virtual cockpit, unrestricted by the aircraft's body. This same unrestricted surround view could be transmitted in multiple vision modes as well, such as near-infrared and thermal imaging to see clearly in situations that a pilot's "eagle eye" would be completely blind to.

On the controller's end, the remote pilot could view the surround image using a high-resolution head-mounted stereoscopic display, with motion tracking to enable them to look in any direction just by turning their head. Resolution should not be a problem with such a system, and if the camera feeds provide a higher resolution than the display, they would have the ability to seamlessly zoom their view, effectively giving them telescopic vision. The pilot would likewise have the ability to view a zoomed out, ultra-wide field view as well. There could additionally be one or more co-pilots viewing the same feed and able to look in any direction independently at will, assigning targets and so on. Each could have their view overlayed with a custom HUD providing them with relevant info.

As for transmission lag, computer-assisted aiming and flight assists could largely make up for it, allowing the aircraft to automatically start reacting to a situation instantaneously. Of course, if the plane is doing something that it shouldn't, the remote pilot will still be able to correct it a fraction of a second later. Autonomous control of vehicles has come a long way in recent years, and it stands to reason that it should continue improving in the years to come. Even if an enemy managed to completely jam a remote-controlled aircraft's transmissions to its pilot, we're getting to the point where that aircraft could still fend for itself, or at least make a quick escape.

Of course, this would mainly apply to aircraft purpose-built with remote and autonomous piloting in mind, although systems could be experimented with on existing aircraft as well. I have little doubt that such systems are already being worked on and experimented with for eventual wide-scale use, and that we'll see those systems in place in the coming decades.

[jaduncan]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

> Situational awareness can never be inputted in code.

...you're already implementing the logic routines in neurons, there's no inherent barrier to doing it in silicon.

Never is a long time.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Lars

What you say is exactly what the flyboy generals will say "what we pilots do can never be done by machines". And you'll be just as wrong.

Situational awareness will be meaningless when two dozen small drones capable of pulling more Gs than you are on you like bees on a Japanese hornet. You won't have nearly enough missiles to take them all out, you won't be able to hit something so small and moving so erratically with your guns, and even if you do take out a couple all it will take is one of them coming from where you aren't looking to ram you and you're done.

Your only choice will be to go supersonic and leave them behind (along with your mission) Don't worry, more will find you eventually, since they'll be so cheap to build given their size and lack of stealth, weapons and supercruise.

Look at how much modern fighter jets cost, the US had to figure out how to build several thousand F35s by selling them to other countries to try to drive the price per unit below $100 million per plane. They have to make them cost a ridiculous amount because the US isn't willing to endure any losses of pilots. Not like WW II when losses were acceptable so planes didn't have to use the best possible technology in every way to try to guarantee pilot survival. Imagine if they were building fighters by the tens of thousands like during WW II, so not only are they much cheaper for the above reasons, they are also getting much better economies of scale. They wouldn't care if a few percent malfunctioned and had to do a controlled crash in a field. They're like cruise missiles, utterly disposable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Lars

You're totally wrong. US WWII planes were designed with as much as possible pilot survivability in mind - employing the best technology available then.

That's why the were heavier than the Zero which was designed to be as maneuverable as the airframe allowed without any protection for the pilot. What the Japanese didn't understand than was a skilled pilot is a valuable asset. Because it takes a lot of time (and money) to train him, and a skilled pilot is able to down much more enemy planes than an unskilled one - and can train new pilots effectively.

Eventually, which planes - and pilots - won the war? The ones on heavier, more protected planes. And Japan air force became less and less effective once it lacked skilled pilots - and had not enough time to train new ones.

In every war you know you will have losses - just good commanders knows if best men have a chance to survive, they can fight the next battle - and better.

Number alone is not sufficient to win a battle - there are many examples where skilled combatants won over sheer number.

The F-35s (and F-22 and B-2) are expensive not because they need to bring the pilot back, they're expensive because today stealthness is thought needed to penetrate actual air defenses, and it doesn't really care if the airplane is manned or not, it has to get near enough to the target to hit it. A lot of cheap unmanned planes have no way to reach any target, they will be easily downed by any capable opponent. If they're cheap enough, old AA cannons wil be enough to destroy them in droves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Lars

Bombers need stealth to avoid AA cannons and reach a target, fighters don't. They have it to protect the pilot (and many fighters are seen as sometimes doing bomber type roles since they're faster)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Lars

Stealth fighter are stealth because they need to clear the airspace to let bombers hit their targets without being downed by enemy fighters. What do you think "air superiority" role means?

When a bomber attacks a well protected target, it will encounter a) fighers b) missiles c) cannons. Escorting fighters must destroy a) while avoiding b) and c). That's why they need to be stealth as well - and stealthiness also makes harder for enemy radars to get a lock on it.

And of course, if a non-stealth fighter escorts a stealth bomber, the stelthiness of the bomber becomes useless because the fighter will advertise the bomber presence...

Drones are becoming stealth as well because a downed drone is pretty useless.... even if it has no pilot to protect.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re: @Lars

"Bombers need stealth to avoid AA cannons and reach a target, fighters don't."

Modern planes are no longer pure bombers or fighters - they are multirole combat aircraft and as such must be designed to be compatible both with air-to-air and ground attack functions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

I think you mean Erich von Manstein, not Rommel....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

There's another very important thing, fighters abilities are greatly limited by the human being inside the cockpit, a remote controlled machine wouldn't have all the nasty problems with G-Force and Air mixing that humans need. Allowing for less weight waste and far greater manoeuvrability. Though it is all down to how good the sensors are and how quickly and reliably that information can get to a control agent.

[Turtle]

@AC

"I think you mean Erich von Manstein, not Rommel...."

To quote Gen. Buck Turgidson: "A kraut by any other name...."

[Snapper]

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

I think you mean Heinz Guderian, not Erich von Manstein....

[a_mu]

humans out the loop

the plane is probably better than when it was manned

the plane had to be limited as to what it could do because the human could not survive the G forces,

try holding a minimum radius turn, the pilot becomes a passenger,

the remote pilot is still drinking his coffee and working out how to kill you

[Anonymous Coward]

You never flew a fighter, did you?

Sure, a drone can sustain higher Gs - as long as the airframe doesn't break and the engines can still breath enough air to avoid a compressor stall - not only pilots have physical limits. But even today the situational awareness a pilot in the cockpit has is unmatched by current technology. Until the remote control station has a 360° 3D "display" without the lag of satellite links (try to fire against a fast moving target a tenth of second later...), and other "inputs" the pilot has, drones will be onfined to recoinessance and attack of static or slow moving targets.

[John Deeb]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

True enough but my guess would be certain sequences and modes would have to be performed fully autonomous. Especially the locking on targets and firing, dodging and so on. It will take a lot of AI to win still with all other things remaining equal but new frame designs and high-G manoeuvres might as some point indeed level the playing field if not obliterate it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

To obtain a hit you have first to put your plane in the right place. It's not like a videogame when you just fire as an idiot hoping to hit the enemy somehow, with almost unlimited ammunitions. There are a lot of training and decisions needed to understand what is the right move and when. Why the US Navy improved a lot its hit ratio when it created the Fighter Weapons School and taught its pilot how to combat properly against different aircrafts instead of just relying on sensors and missiles? How long will it take for an AI to reach that sophistication level?

There is an aggressor tale: an instructor on an F-5 won against the "student" pilot flying an F-16. He said "he entered a lot of high-G manoevreus - I couldn't follow him with my plane thereby I just waited - until he got tired and ended into my crosshair..."

[Pookietoo]

Re: I just waited - until he got tired

Drones get tired?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I just waited - until he got tired

Maybe not if they are AI driven only - but they could end to be predictable. And when you become predictable, you end is someone else crosshair... and while you're in high-G maneuver there a little issue: you can't fire. Nor missiles nor guns can be used (and there's no laser available yet), and even a drone wouldn't be able to aim a target while spinning wildly.

And if your opponent is more skilled than you, when you have to end your twisting and turning, he's there waiting to down you.

[phuzz]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

"drones will be confined to reconnaissance and attack of static or slow moving targets"

When was the last time the USAF (or any other airforce) needed to do anything else?

Anyway, air-to-air missiles are basically one use drones now, the human is only in the loop to pull the trigger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

And do you believe that fighting over Syria or China would be like attacking Afghanistan or Lybia? Sure you can prepare the wrong war, and find yourself with the wrong weapons in the worst moment...

No one said drones are useless - they are excellent weapons when used for what is within their capabilities. There's still a long road before they could become good high-performance fighters and bombers.

Are AA missiles infallible today? Did air forces stop flying planes because of them? And they are much faster than any actual fighter (only the SR-71 was able to evade missiles just because of its speed and altitude...)

[Pookietoo]

Re: before they could become good high-performance... bombers

Funny, I thought the cruise missile was a high performance bomber drone quite a few years back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: before they could become good high-performance... bombers

Maybe the next supersonic and hypersonic cruise. Actual one are just subsonic ones that wouldn't survive a well protected battlefield. That's why important, protected targets needed to be stricken by F-117s and B-2s.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

>But even today the situational awareness a pilot in the cockpit has is unmatched by current technology.

It's not 1939 any more, and we've barely seen the start of drone development.

If you have force of numbers, you don't need situational awareness. If you're putting 10 or 100 cheap highly mobile airframes with a networked AI against one human-controlled combat fighter, the fighter is the whale in a pool full of sharks, and the cavalry officer charging against a tank brigade.

Only one drone needs to slam into a fighter for it to be game-over.

If you're thinking this is about dogfights and missiles mano a mano you're not understanding what the technology is capable of.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

Sure, as US fighters in Vietnam didn't need guns, it was the beginning of the missile era. What happened? They needed to retrofit guns to avoid huge losses...

Actual pilots can still dodge AI controlled missiles - why? Maybe one day AI will become enough sophisticated to be able to fight by themselves - and make all the decisions an actual pilot does.

Relying only on technology is the best way to lose a war. That's why the Israeli Air Force obtained far better results even with inferior technology - it always understood how important the human factor is. While USAF often found itself in trouble because it thought its technology - often untested in a real scenario - was so superior it didn't need anything else.

And BTW: why tanks are still manned when it would be far easier to remote control them than an airplane?

[JLV]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

>Actual pilots can still dodge AI controlled missiles - why? Maybe one day AI will become enough sophisticated to be able to fight by themselves - and make all the decisions an actual pilot does.

LDS, your arguments are largely correct. But, in what I quoted, you are making the exact same point I think many of us are thinking. Sure, the drones wouldn't win, today.

But, the military does get it wrong, too. Not just your Nam cannons, but also the F106, F104, Avro Arrow (I am Canadian) and the whole interceptor series in the mid 60s. The Tornado and F111 as fighters. The B1. Mig-25. Combat doctrine is often revised when it meets an enemy.

I think that military planners entering into current jet fighter programs that automatically assume you will still be correct 20, 30 years from now are not hedging their bets. Wouldn't matter much if those programs were cheap and delivered today. But those planes are late, thus reducing their window of applicability.

And they are very, very, expensive, lessening our budgetary flexibility to adapt down the line.

A smart enemy may pull off a significant late mover advantage by leapfrogging our technology. It happens. Just ask Nokia and RIM, for example. Or the ships at the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

Don't make the mistake to apply what works for IT projects to aereospace projects. Designing a plane is much more difficult than designing a smartphone.

There are the laws of physics to be taken into account, and although electronics is doing a lot to get closer to the physical limits, there's no way to get past them (transparent aluminium and duranium don't exist, nor structural integrity fields, sorry).

Sure, military planners have today a much harder work than just a few years ago. Both manned and unmanned planes have advantages and disadvantages, and it's hard to imagine what will be available in 20-30 years.

But leapfrogging airspace technology is not that easy - it requires huge R&D investment - aerodynamics, materials, structure, actuators, engines, sensors, assembling, and the electronic and software to glue it together. It's not like setting up Facebook or writing Instagram. That's why wannabe countries like Iran use Photoshop to create new fighters, while others like China could be dangerous if they can catch up with the required technology, but even catching up is not easy.

Ships at the bottom of Pearl Harbor are there not because of a leapfrogging Japanese technology - Val and Kate torpedo bombers were not very advanced planes (although they had good torpedoes, and BTW, USA had the first radars instead but weren't able to take advantage of them), nor ships at the bottom of Midway were sunk by advanced planes, nor Dauntless nor Devastator were such (especially the latter - and the "technologically advanced" US torpedoes were a utterly failure - see http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/issues/archives/issue_47/torpedo.html). Both batlles outcomes were due to cunning and bold strategies - not technology. Hiroshima was a huge - and terrible - technology achievement - but how much resources Manhattan Project required? V1s and V2s were another huge technology achievement, but did they changed the war outcome?

Why both Americans and Russian raided Germany technology at the end of WWII? Because in many field it was so advanced it would require a lot of time even for the powerful US to catch up quickly. And for years British plane engines were far more advanced than the US counterparts (think about the Merlin, without which the P-51 would have been a so-so plane, or the early jet engines). It takes a long time to sharpen such skills, and the right background. Germany and England had both the researchers and the engineers to improve technology, but building that background requires years and the right conditions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

"If you're thinking this is about dogfights and missiles mano a mano you're not understanding what the technology is capable of."

I work for an aerospace company. You?

[Shasta McNasty]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

Sure, a drone can sustain higher Gs - as long as the airframe doesn't break and the engines can still breath enough air to avoid a compressor stall - not only pilots have physical limits.

The bit you're missing is that the physical limits of the aircraft can be improved beyond the current limits. Previous improvements have been deemed pointless because the pilot would have already blacked out long before you reached these physical limits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

Not so much. None of the actual drones is an high-perfomance aircraft. The Mach 3 aircrafts were already so complex to build and so expensive not because of the pilot(s), but for the airframe and engines stress - mechanical and thermical. Most composites actually used can't stand high temperatures for long, Actual engines can't work if the intake air becomes supersonic. That's physics, and there's little to do. You can't have Star Wars fighters.... Lucas didn't care about physics.

Up to the point that current aircraft are often less performant of their precedessor to become less expensive to build - compare an F-18E or an F-35C to an F-14D and you see all the differences.

[142]

Re: "the physical limits of the aircraft can be improved beyond the current limits."

True, but the reinforcements required also add weight.

You have to remember what 9G means in practical terms - the forces on heavy internal components are immense. Engines have been ripped from their mountings on US fighters before. The 9G limit on the F16 was there to protect the airframe, first and foremost, not the pilot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "the physical limits of the aircraft can be improved beyond the current limits."

Exactly - and with the plane fully loaded of fuel and weapons the limit is lower - or pieces start to fly around. Moreover in training and peacetime high-G maneuvers are usually highly limited because the stress on the airframe reduce its life, and require expensive inspections and repairs.

[James 36]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

"Until the remote control station has a 360° 3D "display" without the lag of satellite links (try to fire against a fast moving target a tenth of second later...), and other "inputs" "

^^^^^^

this is all just a matter of time.

ever play an FPS online ?

there have been people with high pings anticipating movement to compensate for their network lags ever since online gaming started.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never flew a fighter, did you?

LOL! And do you believe on-line gaming is comparable to a real dogfighting? Does your target move at hundreds of km/h? Grow up, real world is a bit different....

[Anonymous Coward]

China has been doing the same..

.. it has a squadron of 1950's era jets converted to drones flying off the coast of taiwan.

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio controller planes have been in use for ages...

QF- planes are flying for several years - IIRC there were QF-100s (radio controlled version of old F-100 SuperSabre), QF-4s (converted F-4 Phantom), and others. It's ages the Air Force is converting old planes into radio controlled "drones" to be used for targeting practice and live fire tests.

[phuzz]

Re: Radio controller planes have been in use for ages...

The news story here was this is the first use of an F-16 as a QF. They're starting to run out of old Phantoms to shoot at.

[John Smith 19]

Target drones have been flying since the 1930's

What's (slightly) new is that F16 versions are still (AFAIK) in front line service.

But fully autonomous M2 drones (capable of take off and landing) were flying as part of the Navaho intercontinental cruise missile programme of the 1950s.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Target drones have been flying since the 1930's

There's a lot of now retired F-16s from the first production runs, no longer usable as manned fighters. Target planes as well can't be too old, they have to represent somewhat actual enemy targets.

[Anonymous Coward]

begun the drone wars have

[ian 22]

VFR?

Virtual Flight Rules

[Anonymous Custard]

The USAF were jealous of the success of LOHAN and just had to one-up it?

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

All it shows

Is that the US military can afford to use old gen-IV fighters as target drones.

Otherwise, as some posters have noted above, remote controlled planes were being developed and operated in Britain back in the early XXth century (some radio-controlled and some pre-programmed, auto-piloted).

If anything, the prospects of pilotless planes replacing front-line fighters are diminishing now. It has become very clear that they are not a viable replacement for combat aeroplanes in contested airspace.

[Frankee Llonnygog]

How do you simulate manoeuvres ...

... while actually in the air?

[David Evans]

missing the point I think

QFs have been around for decades, they're not really anything to do with UAVs used in combat. Its slightly newsworthy that F-16s are now part of the QF programme, but its not really surprising; people tend to forget that the first F-16s went into service 35 years ago; there a lot of old airframes knocking around.

[WraithCadmus]

When people talk of "keeping humans in the loop" I have to wonder are modern jet pilots really that connected to the physical place? What is the difference between a target on a screen in the cockpit or on a screen at a base? If the pilot is flying and making weapon decisions based on data from systems rather than leaning out the window, what advantage is gained by being physically there?

Full disclosure: I am a total armchair general, I have no experience of any of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pilots take some information from feeling the forces themselves rather than a meter on the dashboard?

as well as other subconscious cues - engine noise, airframe creaking?

[Anonymous Coward]

And think about how a pilot eagle-eye could be limited by the resolution of the monitor... and I still didn't see any 3D drone remote control.

[pepper]

Nop, not the noise, the engine noise is rather deafening constant. The best cue you get is when a fanblade blows up mid operation or any other catastrophic event. Creaking? I certainly hope not, a creaking airframe(especially a F-16) is one that can be written off. Heck, some even get written off after a ever so slightly bad landing(frame slightly bend, only observable by computer).

The forces themself can easily be simulated by using pressure suits. The display/view they see can be projected around them as they would have in a simulator. So really, not much is holding back BVR fighter technology. In a F-16 the computer is already handling most operations of the airplane, the pilots really just in there to make combat decisions. Any have brained person can fly a fighter jet, they are designed and made for ease of use.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! You should give a look at how long it takes to be able to pilot a fighter jet and how long it takes once you can fly it to become combat-ready. They are not made for ease of use, that's commercial planes. They are made to fight the best they can, and they require a skilled, trained pilot to control them. They are like F1 cars - the average driver can't drive them despite the electronics, it's made to win, not to make easier to drive the car.

Why do you believe your start with a basic trainer, than an advanced one, than you start slowly to fly on a combat planes - if you survive the selection? Because when you fly at Mach speeds everything happens very, very quickly - one mistake, and you're dead.

[pepper]

Its takes a long time to become a fighter pilot, not a long time to pilot a fighter yet, they truly are easy to pilot, I wouldnt say easier then a Piper or Cessna, but not much harder. Speed is just another factor to get used too.

Flying always starts with a basic plane, same reason why you dont start your first driving class in a F1 car but start out with a VW Golf or some other car like that. Doesnt mean a F1 car is impossible to drive or tremendously difficult(driving, not racing, important distinction).

You see, the physics of flying doesnt change for either plane, the one is just faster then the other, and flying or driving fast isnt very difficult to learn. Note again that I am NOT talking about entering in combat or low level flying between the mountains or some other trick. I really am just talking about flying a F-16 from point A to point B adhering to aviation law.

[Anonymous Coward]

Physics doesn't change, but design decisions do. Not all planes are designed equal, and designs take advantage of the physics of flying in different ways - to best suit the plane needs.

Commercial planes are designed to be inherently stable, easy to fly and economic to run, even if that makes them less manovrable. Fighter planes (and acrobatic ones) are designed to be much more manovrable even if that makes them far harder to fly, and thus require much more pilot training.

For a commercial pilot it would be difficult even to fly an F-16 from point A to point B, because acceleration, speed, and reactions to little changes in controls positions and so on are much more than in any commercial aircraft. Probably, it would be even difficult to taxi it without issues...

Believe me, most drivers would have issue just starting in an F1 car without spinning right-round. Simply, he or she would not be used to so powerful engine accelerating so fast, with rear traction, and a very sensitive wheel. Driving fast on a straight road is easy. It's when you have to start to turn that it becomes hard...

[John 62]

I have no comment to make on how to fly a jet fighter plane, but the episode of Top Gear where Richard Hammond tried to drive a Formula 1 car was instructive. The aerodynamics meant you couldn't corner without going at what seemed like an insane speed and he couldn't wrap his brain around that.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can comment on it, I work with F-16's and they are easy to pilot. They are designed around the fact that a pilot should have as little worry in the world about his plane as possible. This is how they are build from the ground up. It it as a point and fly plane, all you need to do is point it in a direction on the climb-ladder and the computers will keep the plane at that as much as possible. Heck, the F-16 cannot even be flown without a computer, it is inherently unstable, the stability it has is all thanks to its computer. It has tons of things like this build in.

[Annihilator]

Lag, in essence.

But fly-by-wire has been the "real" pilot in modern airframes for a number of years now.

[Anonymous Coward]

FBW just turns pilot input into an airframe configuration to obtain the desired result. It allows for less "stable" configurations that without it would stress the pilot too much in normal flight because of the continuos input needed, but in warplanes it does what the pilot asks, don't fly the plane like in commercial aircratfs.

[John Brown (no body)]

"Lag, in essence."

Is it though? We always seem to assume that they will be controlled from the other side of the world via a sat link. AFAIK all recent air war scenarios have involved AWACS type aircraft to monitor and relay telemetry or be a flying C&CC. I can't see any reason why the pilots and a shipping container full of "portable" RPV controller kit can't be placed well within range so effectively eliminate lag. Or even put the controllers in the AWACs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just hit the control center or take down the AWACS and you're whole squadron is down. Clever!

[John Brown (no body)]

"just hit the control center or take down the AWACS"

When did you last hear of an AWACs being shot down?

How close does the transmitter for a "local" base have to be to make lag a non-issue?

These do not need to be in the combat zone. Just close enough so they don't need a sat link with added round trip journey time for the signals.

[Anonymous Coward]

<joke>meh - Mythbusters do this all the time!</joke>

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing

Any news on the last "burnt" Dreamliner.

[disgruntled yank]

next up

We need to work at time travel to get these in operation 30 years ago, and prevent Top Gun from ever being made.

[Stixxy]

Pilotless Planes!!!! I guess Canada is bucking the trend with our "Planeless Pilots"!!!

[Ramazan]

you still cannot dock starships in automatic mode

http://gagarin.energia.ru/images/stories/kosmos/dock1.jpg (year 1967 FFS)

[Brandon 2]

situational awareness

The bottom line is, fighter jocks don't want to lose their jobs. Also, where are we gonna get airline pilots if we don't man jets in the military anymore? Oh wait, we don't need pilots in those either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: situational awareness

Right - you don't have AI planes that just need to fly from airport A to airport B and you think you could have AI planes that coudl fight?

[pepper]

Re: situational awareness

Again, most of the flight is already computer controlled, a major part in most crashes is pilot error. With a little change to the system most planes could easily be computer controlled. Once again pilots are not really needed in civilian airliners anyway, its mostly still in there to keep the passengers comfortable(a meatbag instills safety for some reason). In aviation a lot of modern technology's trickly down from the military. So its rather obvious to think that development would first start there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: situational awareness

The Air France A330 crash over the Atlantic Ocean, and the Turkish Airline crash at Schipol were due to pilots relying too much on AI instead of taking proper control of the airplane. Once the sensors started to give wrong inputs to the computers, the computers had no way to understand it was doing the wrong thing - while a human can. There are many crasches due to pilot errors, and as many due to technology errors - wrong designs, and so on. And often the human pilot saved the day, think about the Canadian plane that landed safely after it run out of fuel and thereby power. Human pilots were able to land it with just the emergency generator working - with most of the system inoperative because there was just little electric power.

[Anonymous Coward]

@"Drones will replaced meatsacks" Crowd

- drones remotely controlled can be easily gelocated (direction finding of drone transmitter) and then easily dealt with by a serious opponent

- drones controlled by computer are normally called "cruise missiles".

+ aircraft controlled by a properly trained 100 billion-neuron meat computer can make autonomous decisions during the entire flight, executing a mission in a highly flexible manner

+ the 100 billion-neuron computer can only be replaced by something dumber than an ant at this point

Of course one can use "hybrid" approaches where a manned aircraft controls a swarm of drones or where the drone switches to cruise missile mode and then back and forth.

Anyway - electronic emissions (as those from the control link transmitter) are a very dangerous thing if you wage war against anybody except medievalists.

[bag o' spanners]

Far be it from me to rain on Biggles' parade, but how much combat actually takes place between fighter aircraft in the modern age? Most of the aerial action these days seems to consist of launching missiles and laser guided bombs, while avoiding a few ground launched missiles and ack-ack. Did the Iraqi airforce put up more than a token aerial defence in 2003? Has anyone else bothered since?

Anti aircraft missiles are a lot cheaper than combat aircraft and pilot training, and thus more suited to the average impoverished third world state. We're rapidly running out of reasons to build "fighter" aircraft capable of dogfighting, unless we decide to pick a fight we might lose against a well equipped enemy..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just because the last opponents didn't have a credible air defence - and in the case of Iraq the few more "modern" planes were simply hidden instead of being used against overwhelming forces.

But try to protect Taiwan or Japan or South Korea from China while squadrons of Su-27 family fighters attacks you, not outdated MiG-21 or something alike.

Sure, if you prepare your army just to fight inferior opponents you don't need much. But then a well equipped enemy army can decide to use its weight to impose its rule because you can't pick up a fight you may lose - and you will, if you built an army just to fight weak opponents.

[DaveLeeTravis]

Drones gone wrong

Lets hope they're a bit more sorted nowadays than this delightful story of the battle of palmdale:

http://www.thexhunters.com/xpeditions/f6f-5k_accident.html

[All names Taken]

Did anyone wonder ...

... if this technology will save any lives? (Pilot lives and probably navigator lives too?)

And smoke the enemy at the same time?

No?

Well why?

(Foolish earthing things with fleshy wobbly bits)

[Stuart Grout]

Manned fighter aircraft were clearly the most effective weapons platform for the past 40+ years and are likely to be the most effective of the next decade. Beyond that their cost effectiveness is in doubt.

The USA and to a lesser extent Russia have clear dominance over any likely enemy when it comes to air power. However if we learn the lessons of history we can see that other countries are looking at ways of nullifying this advantage.

In the same way that air power made Battleships irrelevant in WWII, we should expect other countries who cannot hope to match the power of the USAF to look to missiles and drones to defend themselves.

Developing and maintaining drones and missiles that can swarm against manned fighters is something that many countries can hope to achieve. These countries know that they could never train or maintain a manned force capable of resisting the USA. This leaves them with the choice of either surrendering to the demands and whims of Washington & Moscow or developing/buying a capability to deter attack.

The future drones don't need to be as good as a highly trained western pilot in the latest fighter, it just needs to present a serious risk to said pilot. This risk that can be increased by the fact that the drones/missiles will be much cheaper and probably expendable in combat situations.

[Anonymous Coward]

missing the big picture

All this talk about AI versus human capabilities is missing the big item from the article. There is a military unit called the "82nd Aerial Targets Squadron". Imagine coming out of your flight training to find out that you're assigned to that group!

[Stevie]

Bah!

I've seen this already, and it was the worst film of the 1980s despite having Captain Janeway in it.

[Anomalous Cowshed]

Let's take the idea of the drone one step further.

Let's say it were possible to create miniature autonomous flying drones, the size of a wasp - maybe even looking like a wasp. And let's say that once this became possible, it were possible to mass-produce them until the cost became insignificant, something which nature manages to do, so why not us.

Which of the following is most likely to survive a head-on collision:

1. An F-whatever aircraft costing £ 100 million, equipped with high tech air-to-air missiles, massive bombs and deadly cannon and controlled by a top pilot.

2. A huge swarm of 100 million tiny wasp-size drones with basic AI functionality and a variety of small and fiendish weapons such as self-destruct explosive charges at the rear, razor sharp saws at the front, radar antennae, communications jamming facilities...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Let's take the idea of the drone one step further.

An explosive charge the size of a wasp is as dangerous as a cracker. Their small blades would damage what? A bunker, or a tank? Small antennae would have no range . and what kind of power supply would you use? Transmitting and jamming requires a lot of power... and above all, the enemy would just need some fans and nets and to swipe them off.

Massive fast bombs are needed to destroy hardened targets, high-tech missiles are needed to hit high-tech targets, and a skilled pilot to handle them all.

It looks too much bad sci-fi and videogames are making people believe funny ideas are realistc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Works for me

They should take all the old stuff and use it for strikes on terrorists.

[PeterM42]

Ah, the future - we can see it now......

"Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

This flight is being remotely controlled from Luton Airport where your co-pilot and myself are sitting comfortably.

When your co-pilot and I go off shift in about half an hour, your flight will, hopefully, be taken over by someone else, assuming they can get to the airport through the traffic on the M1.

The entire flight is controlled from this base by remote control via computers and wireless technology. Everything has been checked to ensure your safety and absolutely nothing can go wrong, ...go wrong, ...go wrong, ...go wrong, ...go wrong, ...go wrong"

[Anony-mouse]

Probably a cost savings over older aircraft too with this conversion

I would imagine that converting old F16 aircraft to drone status also saves quite a bit of costs as compared to converting an older aircraft such as an F4 Phantom. Since the F16 is already totally computer controlled as far as flight dynamics are concerned, you don't have to retrofit mechanical controls to the stick and rudders like you would an older aircraft. Remember, the F16 was the first production fighter that was designed to be dynamically unstable; so much so that there was no way for a mere human being to be able to fly it without computer support. The only thing I can think of that they would have had to come up with as far as a mechanical addition to the aircraft would be for the engine controls. As to the flight dynamics controls (stick and rudders), all they had to come up with was a to transmit the remote pilot's control actions to the drone aircraft and interface that with the computers that already control the flight dynamics. And since there have been 4500+ aircraft built since it first became operational in 1978 the supply of old, retired F16 aircraft should be pretty plentiful. All you have to do to check that out is open up Google Earth and look at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base and see how many F16s are sitting in the boneyard.