ARmy Rumour SErvice

The last generation of chaps are now sitting in junior schools dreaming of their first taches as we speak.

Bound to come eventually.

It isn't kicking the tyres and a spot of dog fighting before lunch anymore is it?

The removal of the meat and sinew pilot frees up a lot of weight, not just the flesh, but the survival equipment for said flesh. ie air to breath, bang seat, dials and lights to keep them occupied, computerised systems to keep the blood in the head. Removal of hte pilot also means the aircraft could carry out more extreme excelleration and manouvres.

At best most modern aircraft are piloted platforms to drop sophistamacated missiles a little bit closer to their targets...

Take off from Italy (or even UK) sortie to Libya, stooge about abit for the media planes, drop a pre-programmed bomb, come home, land. Do we really need Biggles?

That said, I could imagine teh AAC being piloted for a bit longer. Their more intimate method of war will take a bit longer for Johny5 to emulate.

As a chap from Boeing said to me many moons ago....

'UCAVS are utterly fearless and their design is not constrained by the need to support the biological ballast'.

Current RN debate is kicking off between the WAFU's and the Freddies (that is Pilots/Observers and the Warfare Watchkeeping Fighter Controllers for you lot) as to who will get to play with the UCAVS and helo UAV's when they start being bought into service with the RN (judging by how useful and how much of a step ahead they are, that'll be about 2050 for us)

Pilot = "I have the necessary motor functions and aviation knowledge to fly these things"
FC = "Yes, but you don't ACTUALLY fly the thing... it flies itself, you just tell it where to go"
Pilot = "Rubbish, we're just the men for the job"
FC = "So, what you're saying is that you, a stick jockey, is more suited to sitting behind a set of video and radar screens in an ops room vectoring flying objects into contact with each other then away again... than me, a Fighter Controller who has done grading and training specifically to sit behind a radar screen in an ops room vectoring flying object into contact with each other...because you have good hand/eye coordination... is that what you're saying"
Pilot = "yes"
FC = "right...."

Couldnt rather brute force methods jam the data links between base and robobiggles?
One thing stoogeing about afgah with a predator dropping bombs on random brown people.
Rather diffrent going and bombing downtown Rio when they have actually spent money on an airdefence network?

Originally Posted by brighton hippy

Couldnt rather brute force methods jam the data links between base and robobiggles?
One thing stoogeing about afgah with a predator dropping bombs on random brown people.
Rather diffrent going and bombing downtown Rio when they have actually spent money on an airdefence network?

The Iraqis bought some GPS jammers last round, all that happened was some home on jam weapons were deployed.

Originally Posted by brighton hippy

Couldnt rather brute force methods jam the data links between base and robobiggles?
One thing stoogeing about afgah with a predator dropping bombs on random brown people.
Rather diffrent going and bombing downtown Rio when they have actually spent money on an airdefence network?

As sunoficarrus points out, brute force jammers don't last very long. By their very nature they are extremly 'findable' by Anti-Radiation Missiles.

An unpiloted aircraft of the future (lets call it EDI) could easily have an ARM suite, that just starts rippling off ARMs at sustained radiators in the control systems frequency.

Likewise, you'll prob find that the drones are not drones, but quite capable of making a few descisions on their own. From pushing on and flicking a few bombs at a target, to hit the burners and coming home.

Besides which, what freq will we control them in? Easy enough to control them through UHF and simlar, but HF (and lower) would also allow for control, initiating various built in programmes.

Originally Posted by Yeoman_dai

Current RN debate is kicking off between the WAFU's and the Freddies (that is Pilots/Observers and the Warfare Watchkeeping Fighter Controllers for you lot) as to who will get to play with the UCAVS and helo UAV's when they start being bought into service with the RN (judging by how useful and how much of a step ahead they are, that'll be about 2050 for us)...

Similar to the debate between the WAFUs and the Fish Heads when the RN flirted with hovercraft a few years back. Perhaps history will be repeated and the Booties will end up operating the UCAVs.