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Future of Manned Aircraft
- Thread starter ltedge46
- Start date
This whole argument is ridiculous. If anything was going to be automated, the pilots flying multi-million dollar pieces of equipment with available sensors and capabilities would not be the first to be automated. It would be much easier to develop, test, and field a 7 foot machine that can carry a gun and provide EO/IR optical sensors to a ground commander.
In the future, planes aren't going to be the first automated machines on the battlefield. You're going to spend less dollars, save more lives, and advance warfare much faster by placing the automation in the ground forces first.
In the future, planes aren't going to be the first automated machines on the battlefield. You're going to spend less dollars, save more lives, and advance warfare much faster by placing the automation in the ground forces first.
Nope. The best weapon on the deck today is a Marine, and his best asset in today's battlefield is what's between his ears. You can not replace that guy with a robot who can not make decisions quickly and those automated systems will be just as vulnerable to EA as airborne systems. Sure we have IED detecting robots for EOD and a plethora of automated systems to increase standoff. However for the foreseeable future counter-insurgency warfare and most SOF missions lays squarely in human terrain with face to face interaction. In reality I don't think manned systems either ground or airborne will ever go away, we're just going to see a mix of both.
Show of hands- who actually has actual no shit experience with both manned and unmanned TACAIR platforms? (I do) Most of you talk a mean game but only have experience from one side. Saying you've worked with UAVs and therefore know what they can and can't do is like a Harrier dude saying they know what Skids can do because they worked with them.
It's a new platform and new technology- you don't understand it, and quite frankly you can't. You're too busy learning your own platform. Some skill sets are transferable, many are not. Don't pretend to be an expert on a topic/platform you aren't.
It's a new platform and new technology- you don't understand it, and quite frankly you can't. You're too busy learning your own platform. Some skill sets are transferable, many are not. Don't pretend to be an expert on a topic/platform you aren't.
I'm a harrier guy, and I know what skids can do. I have flown with them countless times in both training and combat. I have controlled them as a FAC, and planned with them countless times at home, on det, on a boat, and in Afghanistan. The same can be said, to a lesser degree of UAV's. I think you are discounting actual experience while overestimating your own.
There was an article yesterday concerning unmanned civilian flights. What caught my attention was that it referenced a "former U.S. Navy fighter pilot who is now a professor at Duke University studying autonomous flight." Anybody got thoughts on what may happen on unmanned civilian flights - whether cargo, passenger or rotary? I have a hard time imagining commercial flights without pilots, but then again, one can wonder how marketing would spin this to the public
http://news.yahoo.com/alps-crash-experts-ponder-flights-without-pilots-064532775--finance.html
http://news.yahoo.com/alps-crash-experts-ponder-flights-without-pilots-064532775--finance.html
The Airbus 2050 concept incorporates a windowless cockpit.
http://www.gizmag.com/windowless-cockpit-airbus/32816/
What shouldn't be discounted is that statement about how people will want a pilot who shares the same fate that they do. That will be tough to overcome- will it happen? Maybe, probably, but not for a very long time. A lot of other systems would need to become "automated" for people to trust them.
But lets be clear here, the airplane would not be making decisions by itself- you're still going to have a dude in a box giving it commands.
As far as cargo goes- we've actually been doing it for a while with a lot of success. the K-MAX/CRUAS was a great program. It's an RPA helo that can external carry 6k lbs; and we used the shit out of it sending stuff from base to FOB to FARP across routes that were too dangers to drive a convoy, giving the 46, 53, 22 and 60 guys a break from hauling the food, ammo and other supplies that were needed- and it could fly in 0/0 weather without the risks associated with doing the same in a helo.
The Air Force is putting together plans for UAS/RPA cargo flights direct to places like Guam and Diego Garcia from the USA. Flights where multiple crews were needed because of duration can be reduced. The aerospace psychologists and physiologists have learned a lot about sleep and crew day/rest and what have you from those flights, and from B-2 flights (30 hours?!) How do you mitigate the risk of a tired pilot on a long mission? Right now we medicate them, sometimes we have the ability to switch them out in bigger airplanes, but not in ejection seat airplanes- how can we change that? They are also taking the X-47s auto-refueling successes and programming them into ideas of extending the range of UAVs, or automated refueling on the transpac/translant. Do we need a dude in the cockpit for that? Right now yeah, but 30 years from now? Maybe not.
All of these things are coming down the pipe, faster than you would believe, and its a cool time to be a UAV nerd. The Shadow technology is more than 10 years old, for all intents and purposes it's obsolete. I wouldn't discount that experience that the treetopflying dude has with them, but dude, technology is evolving an allowing us to go into new directions and giving us new capabilities that you probably don't see simply because they aren't your focus- you just work with us- like we do with you. We have had this conversation before, and it ends in me beating my head against the wall while you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. It's the same conversation UAV guys everywhere are having- except more and more people are starting to at least listen a bit more everyday. One day many many many years from now a dude to going to say to another "Dude, do you realize that at one point we used to ride these things into battle?" just like dudes say that now about 100 years ago and horses.
That's awesome- now can you take all that info and link it without a big delay to a building somewhere and remotely fly it?
You said we can't understand UAV's because we are too busy learning our own platforms. You said we shouldn't "pretend to be experts on something we aren't". In the same post, you pointed out that you have experience in hornets as well as UAV's and that gives you a special point of view. Your example of a harrier guy not knowing about skids shows your ignorance more than anything. An experienced harrier guy should have a very good idea what skids are capable of.
To me, your little diatribe smacks of hypocrisy more than anything. Since you would never claim to be an expert in something you aren't, what exactly is your hornet experience? What squadron(s), deployments, etc?
Darn. I was hoping you would explain what it was about your (surely extensive) tacair experience that allows you to understand both communities when according to you, everyone else is incapable. I'd hate to pretend to be an expert, after all.
I've worked with Swanee - he's legit. Can we get over the dick measuring contest and get back to sharing a conversation all of us should learn more about?
LFCFan
*Insert nerd wings here*
Having dabbled in AI a bit in school prior to the Navy, I don't think Moore's law is the issue. Even if you had unbelievably capable computers (and sensors, for that matter), you'd still have to figure out the software side. There are things in AI that humans do amazingly easily that AI researchers have barely been able to make gains on in 30+ years of research.
What I think will push us over the edge on automation is when our adversaries start doing it, and we really don't have a choice not to lest we become outgunned.