[WildUtah]

Which points to the real problem with the F35 and all next generation fighter planes.

It's not software, relationships, rivalries, cost, or maintenance. It's obsolescence.

By the time there's a full wing of F-35s in regular service, there will be drones capable of routinely shooting them down. The advantage of not needing to coddle a pilot and having all possible G-forces available will make even cheap drones distributed by corrupt Chinese or Russian backchannels superior to the best fighter jets in the world within ten years.

And a whole wing of such drones will soon come cheaper than a single F35.

Obama should do the same to the F-35 as he did to the F-22 and cancel it before it wastes more money.

[noonespecial]

Such drones have existed for some time now. They are colloquially known as "surface to air missiles".

[InclinedPlane]

The logistics of aerial domination are pretty much the same whether you're talking drones or piloted craft. If you are the attacker you use ECM and missile/bomb bombardment to take out the radar/SAM stations. Meanwhile, you try to destroy as much of the enemy's airplanes on the ground as possible. If you have superiority in the air you take advantage of it, destroying every enemy thing that flies whether it is piloted by a crew or not.

The biggest advantage that drones have is a tactical one. And perhaps a manufacturing/logistical one if they can be produced in greater numbers, though at present that is not the case. Tactics only apply if there is a logistical balance sufficient to allow for a roughly even battlefield.

[Daniel_Newby]

The biggest advantage of drones is you get to reuse the pilot. The second biggest advantage is you get to use a team instead of one pilot.

[rbanffy]

A key advantage is that drone pilots can learn something from having their planes blown to pieces.

[_b8r0]

To expand, I think you may be (intentionally or unintentionally) referring to loitering munitions. These are munitions (not just SAMs but other bits of kit) that are launched in theatre with no specific target set on the ground, then reconfigured in-flight after relaying information back to the ground.

Traditional SAMs aren't quite the same thing and serve different purposes.

[salem]

Rather than replacing manned planes, once software and AI catches up, it's more likely that a huge numbers of semi-automonous drones would get pared up with F-22s and F-35s as wingmen. It would solve the bandwidth and pilot shortage problems, and reduce the risk that a few anti-SAT missiles take out the entire drone fleet. Oh, and that helmet and the sensor fusion software is probably going to be a key stepping stone to making that happen.

[Symmetry]

We already have AWACS that are more or less designed as control planes, no need to keep the manned fighter planes around.

[salem]

If I'm in denied airspace, I'd rather be in an F-35

[greedo]

The problem with relying on drones is threefold; Humans are excellent computers, the Mark 1 eyeball has some advantages over other optical systems, and drones rely on a passive electronic environment. Jamming GPS and other control frequencies would be the first course of action should we attempt to use drones on a serious opponent.

[Tuna-Fish]

> Humans are excellent computers

Humans are very slow. Humans are also squishy, fragile, heavy, and can't take G-forces very well. (Really, at all.)

> the Mark 1 eyeball has some advantages over other optical systems

These are rapidly going away with machine vision research.

> and drones rely on a passive electronic environment

Only ones with a human pilot. The air-to-air drones that will be deployed at the tail end of this decade will be completely autonomous after they receive their orders.

There is ridiculous amount of progress in a-to-a drones at the moment. Very nearly everyone who used to build/design fighters is now concentrating on drones. There will not be a seventh-generation manned fighter, and the sixth-generation ones will be outclassed very rapidly.

[greedo]

Humans are far superior at many of the tasks that require more than just following an algorithm. And the Mark 1 may not have Steve Austin abilities, but compared to scanning terrain with a Sniper/Lantirn pod, it is unbeatable. Talk to some of the guys who fly the Predators out at Creech, and they'll gladly tell you the unclassified shortcomings.

And autonomous air to air drones still need to be able to accept instructions/commands while in route, during combat, etc. The idea that we'll simply unleash 100 drones and create a killzone isn't something that's going to fly...

The reason all the companies are building and designing drones is because that what the governments/militaries are paying for. Private industry simply can't afford to do much R&D that isn't already contracted for by the DOD etc.

Finally, drones are easy pickings for manned aircraft. For permissive environments like the 'Stans and Iraq, sure. Up against someone with a real AD network, forget about it.

[jakeonthemove]

I suppose they could replace the pilot in the F35 in the future? I still think the F22 would've been more than enough for now and F35 is a waste of money, though...

[hastur]

That's rather naive. You conveniently forget the fact that before you shoot down an F-35, first you have to spot it.

Not to mention that building a drone with capabilities similar to a manned fighter is a very hard problem and you can be quite sure that US's rivals (China, Russia) are decades away from fielding one.

[Daniel_Newby]

The F-35's "secret sauce" is sensor fusion and human-machine interface. If their innovations actually work, they can easily be rolled into the next generation drones. In the meantime they can be used to fight dirty little wars.