Foghorn Leghorn
I believe you are missing the point here and this thread about a trainer for 4th Gen aircraft. There will be no need to train a Pilot as we know them for Tempest. No need for anything like the EFT-BFT-AJT pathway that we have now. Much of the flying will be done by the aircraft and the human riding in it will need more skills like a FJ WSO than a single-seat FJ Pilot. Now I get it that FJ Pilot egos will find that a hard concept to grasp, but it is the reality of where Tempest is headed. If you look at the releasable stuff from Skunk Works or Phantom Works then they are too (remembering their releasable stuff is normally at least 1 Gen removed!).
Further with DARPA’s ALIAS project a bolt in autonomous Pilot is now possible for Multi-Engine and Rotary Wing platforms. Give it a Google, it exists now.
So really our future generation of Aircrew within 10 years are more likely to be with FJ WSO and ISTAR WSO skill sets rather than traditional ‘stick monkey’ Pilot skills. Within 10 years I expect to see only 1 person on the flight deck of a heavy aircraft or in a helo cockpit. That is something that is coming and as Aircrew we either adapt and take out hard earned skills with us, or we simply fade away as the autonomy takes over…
