Slowly following the navigator out the door. Black boxes don't need training, housing, feeding and pensions; or maybe a modern day Duncan-Sandys?
SECNAV: F-35C should be Navy's last manned strike jet
The operational use of the carrier-based joint strike fighter could mark the beginning of the end of the Navy's manned bombing sorties, if the Navy secretary gets his way.
The F-35C "should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in a speech Wednesday at the annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition outside Washington, D.C. Fighter jocks would still be needed for dogfighting, but Mabus envisions a future when strike missions will be fulfilled by unmanned aircraft.
Mabus announced the creation of the N99 Navy staff office for unmanned weapons systems and a new position for deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for unmanned systems. "Unmanned systems, particularly autonomous ones, have to be the new normal in ever-increasing areas," he said.
The announcement came
the same day as a milestone test for the Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration program, the first of three aerial refueling tests that mark the program's concluding step..........
