US Air Force Confirms New Stealth Aircraft

[Vulcan]

If we can program a space ship to land on Mars, and then send little robots out on their own, then we can pre-program attack aircraft.

Yeah ummm look at the success rate before you get too confident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Timeline_of_Mars_exploration

[DYNAMITE]

Haven't these people watched The Terminator??????? 

*cough* SKYNET *cough*

[Angus]

Yeah ummm look at the success rate before you get too confident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Timeline_of_Mars_exploration

The distances involved are *cough* quite impressive vs short missions.
And there is no flying through space.
There is practically no lag in communications.
The AI can take over if the link is cut as well as taking care of procedures.

Really, I think this is going to be it. Unmanned aircraft will take over. They'll be cheaper to build, and able to deliver payload or strafing into incredible areas without any risk to the pilot. The next generation may be anti-aircraft drone

[Clone155]

Well you know what that means. Since they are telling us about this then they have something to replace it.

[Angus]

Already......

[john9001]

they are already using unmaned planes that can takeoff, fly a mission and land without outside control.

[Grayeagle]

so the question .. how do you shoot down a drone?

Hit it with something it's not programmed for.

(example: .. over North Vietnam .. kept losin firebees to one route package, couldn't figure it out so an F-4 was sent to get eyes on as the Firebee went along its merry way ..

..well ..

..seems Charlie had built a bridge across a ravine the Firebee was supposed to fly thru .. it was hitting the bridge, taking it out ..  .. Charlie was rebuilding it before the next mission went up there apparantly .. ROFL)

-GE

[Rich46yo]

I dont know what a firebee is. And Vietnam was a long, long time ago.

Future attack drones will have sophisticated terrain following radar, "if its even used due to their stealth". The difference in computing power put in airplanes then and now is astounding anways. The technology is already here.

[Simba]

So what's new? The Royal Navy was operating a radio-controlled pilotless drone back in the 1930s - the de Havilland Queen Bee, a derivative of the Tiger Moth - and the bloody AA gunners couldn't usually hit that either.

 

[Vulcan]

I dont know what a firebee is. And Vietnam was a long, long time ago.

Future attack drones will have sophisticated terrain following radar, "if its even used due to their stealth". The difference in computing power put in airplanes then and now is astounding anways. The technology is already here.

Removing a human from the decision to kill is something I doubt we'll ever see. Destroying these drones is fairly easy for a manned aircraft right now. The drones don't have the bandwidth to provide the same resolution and visual fidelity a guy 'in the cockpit' gets.

As for sophisticated terrain following radar... how'd those tornado's go in iraq

[Jayhawk]

I doubt we'll ever actually see our military force go without some manned aircraft.  Chances are they will sit on the sidelines in many conflicts though.

[321BAR]

yeah like just lobbing up high something that creates a big arse EMP to interfere with the signals and adios drone craft.

though 98% of the planet cant do that so pilots will be kept for that 2% that can.

nice joke but totally flawed idea... an EMPs gonna stop a piloted craft as easily as a drone...and we'd lose a pilot in the process... and most EMPs take out too large of a circumfrence to be able to only affect the aircraft targeted alone... aka the emps hitting the ground also and knocking out the EMP firer's systems that arent shielded

[321BAR]

What kind of EMP? And who's going to need an uplink? The drone fighter will be programmed for a function and will be able to do it without a constant uplink. Besides that kind of EMP, to knock down an EMP hardened drone, isnt that easy to come by. Its not like you can shoot a nuke off. We have been sheilding airplanes from EMP for decades. I was at a base in NM where they would put a huge bomber onto a huge wooden platform just to test EMP and shielding. There isnt going to be any surprises from EMP.

If we can program a space ship to land on Mars, and then send little robots out on their own, then we can pre-program attack aircraft. Heres another example of the future. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/warrior.htm or http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/ucav.htm

We will be coming to the point where we wont risk a pilot on an opening night strike package. Like I said we wont live to see a pilot-less air force. But eventually somebody will.

what do you mean? we definitely all live in fallout 3 where a normal person can shoot a mini nuke off 500 yards away from you and live through the radiation afterwards!!! although its not the year 2072 and there arent 2 story tall super mutants running around eating people huh?

[Wolfala]

So what's new? The Royal Navy was operating a radio-controlled pilotless drone back in the 1930s - the de Havilland Queen Bee, a derivative of the Tiger Moth - and the bloody AA gunners couldn't usually hit that either.

 

In the late 1960s, the Navy studied the possibility to convert the BQM-34A Firebee target drone to a remote-controlled anti-ship missile. In several test flights, BQM-34As equipped with a TV system in the nose, were successfully flown by remote "pilots" watching the TV image. Precision low-level flight above the sea was made possible by the Ryan-developed RALACS (Radar Altimeter Low Altitude Control System). In September 1971, successful tests of Model 248 missiles (called "BQM/SSM") against ship targets showed the validity of the basic concept, but the project was terminated due to lack of funding.

In the same year, the USAF showed interest in a development of the Firebee I to be used for enemy air-defense suppression, because of the high loss rate in these missions. In March 1971, Teledyne Ryan received a contract to convert four Model 147S drones to BGM-34A (Model 234) configuration. Like the Navy's BQM/SSM, the BGM-34A was piloted by an operator watching a TV image transmitted from the drone's nose. In tests during 1971/72, the BGM-34As successfully launched AGM-65 Maverickair-to-surface missiles and electro-optically guided glide bombs against simulated SAM sites. Interestingly, almost 30 years later a firing of an AGM-114 Hellfire missile by an MQ-1L Predator UAV was much hyped as a breakthrough in armed UAV technology.

Following the successful BGM-34A tests, Teledyne Ryan developed the BGM-34B (Model 234A) operational strike RPV. This featured the higher-rated J69-T-41A engine, a modified tail, larger control surfaces, and improved operational capabilities. Eight BGM-34Bs were built, and tested in 1973/74. The tests included the modification of some of the drones with a new nose containing a LLLTV (Low Light Level Television) camera and a laser designator, to act as a "pathfinder" for weapon-carrying RPVs.



Whats old is the new new...

[321BAR]

Yeah ummm look at the success rate before you get too confident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Timeline_of_Mars_exploration

i read this and i need to say that there hasnt been a failure since 1999 and that spirit and opportunity worked for an entire YEAR longer than thought... one even survived a martian winter with little sunlight to be reactivated in the spring... 2nd, youre all taking mathematics that MUST be precise to the .000000001 degree or there will be failure and putting it into a perspective with much more simple drone aeronautics that has nothing to do with flying a probe billions of miles across our solar system to another planet... and then landing them!