Future of air combat

[dedalos]

Manned fighters will no longer be practical. Blinding pilots with lasers has to be right around the corner. It's way to easy to do. It may take the next big war to prove I'm right. Right now lasers may be unfeasibly inexpensive to use.

  What exactly is a fighter pilot need to see looking outside his plane unless he is landing?

[jollyFE]

The f35 has sensors that project on to the pilots visor giving him 360 views wherever he looks, even through the planes structure.  So you don't need to actually be there to see all around, plus pull more G's, limited only by acft  itself which is more than a human could withstand.

We often joke at work that the computers systems are skynets dad.

[Vulcan]

The f35 has sensors that project on to the pilots visor giving him 360 views wherever he looks, even through the planes structure.  So you don't need to actually be there to see all around, plus pull more G's, limited only by acft  itself which is more than a human could withstand.

We often joke at work that the computers systems are skynets dad.

Bollocks.

Tell me how do you project 'all around vision' in high enough definition, high enough frame rates, and stereoscopic 3d back to a ground station.

There isn't a system yet than can match the computing power of a brain, nor the vision system we have.

[jollyFE]

Integrate systems and send it back.  Seems to work pretty darn good when I'm at work and were using tech that's 10 years old

[Brooke]

Unmanned aircraft will eventually take over most fighting roles, I think, mainly because it is much less expensive.  There is already a transition underway.

[PFactorDave]

For me, the scariest part of the whole unmanned drone thing is...  The further detached we become from the death and carnage of the wars we wage, the easier it will be for politicians with suspect motives (good and bad) to put us, as a country, into the position of killing people of less powerful countries for reasons that perhaps would not have brought us to war in the past.

War should be the most horrific act any nation commits themselves to. 

[Raphael]

For me, the scariest part of the whole unmanned drone thing is...  The further detached we become from the death and carnage of the wars we wage, the easier it will be for politicians with suspect motives (good and bad) to put us, as a country, into the position of killing people of less powerful countries for reasons that perhaps would not have brought us to war in the past.

War should be the most horrific act any nation commits themselves to. 

Big salute to your post sir. really apreciate this.
they are making so many fake reasons and building so many lies to make wars these days that some people just think they know what they are figthing for ): I hope they don't rule 14 me on this one... usually can't say these kind of things anywhere but college

[mthrockmor]

Big salute to your post sir. really apreciate this.
they are making so many fake reasons and building so many lies to make wars these days that some people just think they know what they are figthing for ): I hope they don't rule 14 me on this one... usually can't say these kind of things anywhere but college

Amen and amen...reason why I strongly opposed mini-nukes of a few years back. War must come with a staggering price or it will be waged to the end of our Republic.

[Brooke]

I understand the motivation, but that is definitely NOT the way to handle it.

The above is the same as advocating is that a bunch of countrymen (not you, though) should die -- specifically ones who otherwise would live and who had no part in or ability to declare war -- for the purpose of it dissuading your publicly elected officials.

That's like advocating that a bunch of families in the US (except not your families) have their houses burn down every time the government wastes $1 billion.  That would definitely make it more horrible to waste money and would help dissuade politicians from such waste.

[DREDIOCK]

For me, the scariest part of the whole unmanned drone thing is...  The further detached we become from the death and carnage of the wars we wage, the easier it will be for politicians with suspect motives (good and bad) to put us, as a country, into the position of killing people of less powerful countries for reasons that perhaps would not have brought us to war in the past.

War should be the most horrific act any nation commits themselves to. 

politicians have never seemed ot have a problem with this anyway.

But I strongly advise we steer the subject in another direction

[mthrockmor]

Brooke, good point and now a deep philosophical discussion.

Take the dreaded act of HO'ing in this game. At worst, it ruins 10 minutes of your time as you have to reup, and your score will drop. Other then this, of what consequence is HO'ing at every turn? Throw in you develop a bad rap, there is not real cost.

In real life some HOs happened but because it was such a Vegas style crap shoot no one would intentionally fly their bird right into someone elses guns with the hope that they hit first. It was suicide and only done when it was unavoidable. The cost of war is removed, one action happens. The cost of war is realized, another happens.

I won't even get into the economics of our current situation, and ultimately war must be waged with maximum effeciency though there must be consequence.

Boo

[wil3ur]

Read an Interesting article here the other day about some recently declassified material from the early cold war...  During the height of the 'Missile Gap' the USSR had exactly 4 ICBMs.  Eisenhower had it right in his farewell speech.  If the reason to create and deploy these isn't there, we'll make it.

[Raphael]

and that scares the hell out of everyone else 

[flight17]

X-47... there is a big waste of money...