“Control platform for UAV’s...” Seriously? Why would one spend a trillion dollars for something which could be done from a portakabin?
Frankly, at this stage it’s a buzzword bingo list of all the latest salesmen pitches......
AW&ST: .......”The Franco-German fighter, details of which first emerged in July during a meeting of the Franco-German council of ministers, would feature “enhanced capabilities” in terms of range, persistence, electronic warfare, survivability, situational awareness and weapons capability. Artificial Intelligence would also play a major role, the officials said.
Airbus has begun detailing its take on the German requirements with a family of manned and unmanned platforms in which the manned aircraft act as command-and-control platforms. Swarming fleets of unmanned combat air vehicles carrying sensors, jamming equipment and weaponry could be launched by Airbus A400M airlifters and directed into action by the fighter jet.
“Fifth-generation aircraft will have to do some [command and control], and if you operate four of them together, you can achieve some air superiority,” says Antoine Noguier, head of strategy at Airbus Defense and Space. “This [future] fighter needs to go beyond that, with a combination of low-observability and long range; it will need to crunch data internally to provide local and distributed [command-and-control] perspective on other effectors.”
Open software architectures to allow easy upgrading of onboard systems and a directed-energy weapon were also necessities for the new aircraft, Noguier says.”.......