Live Long and Prosper - and the Death of the Fighter

[ORAC]

Musk being provocative.....

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-warfare-symposium/2020/02/28/spacex-founder-tells-the-air-force-the-era-of-fighter-jets-is-ending/

SpaceX’s founder tells US Air Force the era of fighter jets is ending

[SWBKCB]

What, again?

[ORAC]

They only have to be right once......

[Herod]

Duncan Sandys, Defence Minister UK 1957.

[911slf]

See Private Eye. Brainless and headless!

[etudiant]

If the 'loyal wingman' concept has any merit, Musk is probably right.
The drone needs to be able to at least keep up with the manned fighter, so the pilot is baggage apart from the tactical decision making. The latter is driven by the sensor inputs, which can certainly be handled by an AI.
There is a separate thread highlighting the impact of drones on operations is Syria here: https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/513470-here-comes-syria-127.html#post10699257
It is quite illuminating and the impact of the mainstream military technology now available to Turkey,. Presumably a premier military technology power can do considerably better.

[Easy Street]

the pilot is baggage apart from the tactical decision making. The latter is driven by the sensor inputs, which can certainly be handled by an AI.

This is the key insight. We are well-used to hearing the argument for ‘sensor fusion’, which is that there is too much information coming into a F-35 for the single pilot to interpret it all, so a computer will do the processing needed to present a simple, clear air picture: red track bad, blue track good, yellow track unknown. While this is not quite the case yet, it is getting there. And it is one of the factors behind the huge expense of the aircraft.

The original rationale for sensor fusion was being able to dispense with a second crew member, and of course this was wholly acceptable to the pilot-dominated Air Force hierarchies. However, as AI and automated flight improve, there will eventually come a point when the only argument for retaining a pilot is the societally-driven need to keep a human in the loop on ethical decisions like employing weapons (on the reasonable assumption that electronic warfare will make beyond-line-of-sight remote control too unreliable). But, when fully implemented, sensor fusion will reduce the fighter pilot’s ethical input to ‘shooting red tracks OK, shooting other tracks bad’: and of course it will be a computer taking the in-cockpit decisions over which tracks to colour red. The remaining step (to actually shoot at them) is not such a big ethical leap as opponents of AI would like people to think.

I should add that this isn’t an endorsement of AI in all corners of the military need. Robust line-of-sight datalinks and/or an alternative cheap manned platform would offer an alternative for peacetime home air defence operations, allowing AI elements to be focussed on the war fighting requirement, where the need to avoid human losses is most pressing and the ‘societal ethics’ barrier is likely to be marginally lower. And the relatively uncluttered air battle space makes it easier to foresee autonomous combat aircraft than (for instance) autonomous robot soldiers conducting house-to-house urban clearance operations with civilians present.

So I’m worried that we are doing Tempest 5-10 years too early, and thus including a cockpit, when the defining characteristic of 6th gen may well be the lack of a pilot. And this is exactly the kind of argument I think Dominic Cummings will raise during the UK’s forthcoming Integrated Review. The “start it now to keep BAES Warton busy after Typhoon” argument will cut little ice with him, one suspects.

Now, if the pilots had not pushed so hard for expensive/complex sensor fusion and had instead retained a single WSO as the crew of an automatically-piloted combat aircraft, there would not now be such an obvious path to a completely unmanned platform. Just saying... and I am a pilot. (Have I just hit on the answer to the MFTS debacle: stop training pilots to fly?!)

[Captain Radar....]

Surely the pilot, or platform operator, doesn't have to be in the cockpit? Remote operating of airborne weapon systems is now routine. The human can still be in the loop, just not on board.
Visual ID? Camera turret slaved to VR headset and you've got it, at ranges beyond human capabilities. Likewise the operating envelope could be increased beyond the frailties of the human. We could have people operating these things who've got the mental capacity to fly and fight but wouldn't have the physical capability to fly a fighter. Don't suppose happy hour would be the same though..................................

[Runaway Gun]

The mass of data that is sent to and from simple recce drones, is simply incredible. To transfer the hundreds or thousands of more data volume to replace the 'man in the cockpit' to a pilot in a bunker/office/bar, without losing line of sight during manouvering, in a timely manner without undue lag - I just don't know if its yet possible. Then in times of jamming, or lost signal, the aircraft is likely to return home, leading to a loss of mission - may cost more lives.

In many scenarios the Stick Monkey being on the scene in a much simpler aircraft can achieve a lot more at a much cheaper cost.

[Easy Street]

Surely the pilot, or platform operator, doesn't have to be in the cockpit? Remote operating of airborne weapon systems is now routine. The human can still be in the loop, just not on board.

Remote operation is indeed routine, but only in the type of operating environments we’ve enjoyed over the past 20 years. It is already bandwidth-limited (a problem if you want remote video and/or large numbers of aircraft operating simultaneously) but the bigger problem in a full-scale war fighting scenario will be electronic warfare. A key advantage of air platforms over surface-based air defences is that they can move over hostile territory, and that means that they will be closer to the enemy’s jammers than to the friendly datalink transmitters. That’s a losing equation in terms of transmission power requirements unless you build a complex (and fragile/vulnerable/bandwidth-limited) network of air, surface and space relays: the so-called ‘combat cloud’. Short-range line-of-sight directional datalinks can probably avoid the worst of the effects, but combined with the increasing vulnerability of SATCOM to space-based interference, remote control is (IMHO) going to remain limited in its applicability.

[ORAC]

Air combat was picked because it is the more clear cut arena for AI - no messy civilians about - think of it as an attack dog let off the leash with the order kill!

Able to pull high-G, if purposely built far smaller, or with greater range, as all the human support rims, cockpit, canopy etc are rendered obsolete - and with an AI pilot which is recomputing every millisecond and where a combat may only takes seconds which to a pilot is just a blur.....

https://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html

[OK465]

And no relief tube required. :}

[ORAC]

https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-10-21

https://youtu.be/Jtb68OVWyVw

https://youtu.be/xCkw-nxUSm4

[oldmansquipper]

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/uks-first-search-rescue-drone-17847201

just sayin.

[SOX80]

Being a pilot maybe I am biased but I am always suspicious when somebody says the days of the manned fighter are over, or driverless cars will be taking over, or my house is going to be completely networked and do everything for me. Technology is one of our strengths in the west but at the same time is our biggest weakness, if we rely on it completely we will be pretty screwed when it is denied to us (as it will be because any enemy worth their salt will know what our critical nodes are). How well will F35 work when ALIS is denied? I am sure automation, AI etc. will play a huge part in our future both military and civilian but it is worth considering why we like it; it makes our life easier and is good for business (isn't it Mr Musk) but it is not always the best solution, indeed some think we may have reached peak technology. I think there will always be a requirement for a squaddie with a bayonet or a fighter with a pilot in capable of operating outside the network when the crap really hits the fan.

Anyway, we cant even provide hot water in the mess at the moment so providing secure networked pilotless air systems may be a way off.

[Art Smass]

Technology is one of our strengths in the west but at the same time is our biggest weakness

Yep - just try buying something at the mall when the internet is down and the banking systems aren't talking.

[jmmoric]

Sure it's not possible to jam the signal to and from drones?

The sun can corrupt a signal between a sattelite and a disc on the ground, if they're in a straight line (something experiences for a short while at noon every year up north where the sattelites are "low on the horizon")

So with the right equipment to detect the drones, disrupting the signal should be possible as well.... question is, who gets there first? And then you'd need someone on board again...

And I honestly don't believe jamming and corrupting encrypted radio signals cannot be done... Finding the frequencies may be a bit harder, but that kind of equipment have existed for years as well, mostly for intercepting radio communication though.

Radio frequence interference is already making using GNSS in some parts of the world "harder"...

[tdracer]

A good analysis of Musk's claim.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a31194615/elon-musk-fighter-jet-dead/

[flyinkiwi]

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/601x245/360ak7_ed07b764a18017e940fa6824edb7c7ead4b3bdce.jpg
I think Maverick has the best response to Mr Musk.

[tartare]

Seconded Mav...

[jmmoric]

A good analysis of Musk's claim.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a31194615/elon-musk-fighter-jet-dead/

So the next thing will be a stealth figther covered in mirrors?

[ORAC]

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/us-air-force-plots-fleet-insertion-path-loyal-wingman

US Air Force Plots Fleet Insertion Path For ‘Loyal Wingman’

The format of the U.S. Air Force’s “fireside chat” series is well-understood. A technology pioneer such as Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson or Mark Cuban appears onstage at an Air Force-affiliated event, counsels an audience of pilots and airmen about innovation and, not least, tries not to offend anyone. Elon Musk arrived at the Air Warfare Symposium on Feb. 28 with a different plan.

The founder of SpaceX and Tesla, who seems to delight in publicly tweaking established competitors in the space market such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, sat on the Air Force Association’s (AFA) stage and declared that the fighter aircraft—for decades the heart of the Air Force’s tactical combat capability—is already irrelevant. “The fighter-jet era has passed,” Musk said, provoking audible gasps and murmurs in an audience peppered with officers clad in flight suits. Lt. Gen. John Thompson, Musk’s interviewer, quickly changed the subject........But Musk’s remarks only differed with those of senior Air Force officials at the same event in the details of timing and scope. For over a year, Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, has championed a vision of future airpower populated by numerous, small batches of autonomous aircraft augmenting manned fighters with specialized capabilities. For the first time, Gen. James Holmes, head of Air Combat Command (ACC), offered a path to introducing such aircraft into the fleet around 2025-27.

In the near term, the Air Force is focused on replacing aging F-15C/Ds with a mix of Boeing F-15EXs and Lockheed Martin F-35As. The Air Force decided to add the F-15EX to its inventory last year even as the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) began experimenting with a new class of low-cost aircraft with an “attritable” value.

The first such experimental aircraft, the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, in March 2019 completed the first of four flights made to date. Next year, the Air Force plans to fly the XQ-58A or a similar aircraft with an artificial intelligence “brain,” which allows the so-called Skyborg aircraft to learn maneuvers as it flies. Such capabilities are not far from Musk’s vision of future air combat, but they are too immature to replace a fleet of F-15Cs on the verge of being grounded; hence, the decision to buy the F-15EX instead.

The next opportunity to introduce a new kind of aircraft comes in about 5-8 years, Holmes says. That timing dovetails, perhaps intentionally, with the schedule for maturing aircraft such as the XQ-58A and Skyborg. The Air Force will need to replace hundreds of F-16 Block 25s and Block 30s, which entered production in the mid-1980s.

“There’s an opportunity there if we want to cut in something new, a low-cost attritable, loyal wingman and the different things that we’re looking at and experimenting with,” Holmes says.

In late February, Holmes and Roper met to discuss the meaning of a “fighter aircraft” in the future with the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program in the backdrop. The program office for NGAD began operations in October, with a focus on inventing a new production process capable of affordably producing small batches of advanced aircraft every 3-5 years. But Air Force officials are still grappling with the definition of basic requirements such as range and payload, as operations in the vast Pacific Ocean dominate the calculations.

“The equation and the kind of math that we use for a fighter still works pretty well in the European environment—the range and payload and distance,” Holmes says. “It’s not as effective a solution in the Pacific, because of the great distances. So as you look at NGAD and you look at the following programs, I wouldn’t expect it to produce things that necessarily look like a traditional fighter.”.........

The XQ-58’s performance helps define the new class of aircraft, called “loyal wingman” in the U.S. and “remote carriers” in Europe. A critical feature shared by the XQ-58 and similar aircraft such as the Boeing Airpower Teaming System (ATS) is range. Both are capable of flying 3,000 nm unrefueled, almost three times the range of the F-35. Unlike the ATS, the XQ-58 does not need a runway to land, and instead deploys a parachute.........

[Fareastdriver]

I remember, as a brand new pilot on my first squadron, being buttonholed by a very senior officer and told I was wasting my time as the Air Force would be all rockets and missiles within a decade.

That was in 1962.

[etudiant]

I remember, as a brand new pilot on my first squadron, being buttonholed by a very senior officer and told I was wasting my time as the Air Force would be all rockets and missiles within a decade.

That was in 1962.

In fairness, that was sensible career advice, although he really should have told you to go into logistics.

[pr00ne]

etudiant,

No it wasn't, not in 1962. Within two years the RAF was dismantling its Thor and Bloodhound 1 sites and any who had chosen 'rocketry" as a career path were in trouble.

[etudiant]

etudiant,

No it wasn't, not in 1962. Within two years the RAF was dismantling its Thor and Bloodhound 1 sites and any who had chosen 'rocketry" as a career path were in trouble.
Guess I was blinded by my US perspective.
You are entirely right, the UK turned its back on 'one shot' systems, but never came up with an alternative.
Afaik, the Lightning, whose origins predate that era, was the last indigenous UK combat aircraft. All since then has been mutts, no thoroughbreds.

[brakedwell]

Duncan Sandys, Defence Minister UK 1957.


That cancelled my Hunter Course at Chivenor and slotted me into multi engine!

[NorthernKestrel]

From todays RAeS blog... end of the 'fighter pilot mafia'?

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/breaking-through-the-hud-glass-ceiling/

[MPN11]

From todays RAeS blog... end of the 'fighter pilot mafia'?

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/breaking-through-the-hud-glass-ceiling/
VERY thought-provoking. Thanks for posting.

[FakePilot]

Elon Musk and Popular Mechanics, "Golly Gee Technology" at its worst. I'm surprised he didn't claim all fighter pilots are pedophiles.

[finestkind]

Aviation started its fledging career as an observation platform (balloons American civil war? Or perhaps Chinese even earlier?). The obvious next step was to stop the opposition from utilising this platform (pistol at two wing spans graduating to more deadlier armament). At some stage someone thought of helping the boys in the mud and dropped “stuff” which became more refined if not overly accurate and could far outreach artillery. The whole military aviation expanded but the basics shifted from gaining intelligence ( particularly when satellites became more prominent) to delivering ordnance. The cry of we need S/A on site was justified until technology became so good whereby you now have more S/A looking inside than outside. Still the argument is there that we need a set of eyes there when the commercial airliner is not responding to see what is happening before we shot it down countered by your zoom lens’s will see more than the naked eye. It is inevitable that the human piloting bit will be removed from the aircraft and numerous other aspects of the military. It is just a matter of when.