The Sixth Generation Fighter is around

[azfar]

^
^ 100 agreed.

 

[lockh33d]

Gents...Care to list what those 'too many functions' and 'so much'? What you are saying is applicable to ordinary life that has nothing to do war.

This is beyond the often cited 'cultural resistance' by proponents of having a totally unmanned aerial combat force. The current successes of UAV are against ground targets, whose mobility are restricted to two dimensions, hence any airborne opponent is at an automatic advantage. No different than if the UAV is a blimp, except the blimp is not as maneuverable. The UAV is also not facing adversary in TYPE, in other words, so far we have no air combat kills between UAVs of opposing air forces. So any pronouncement of the inevitability of an unmanned air force is premature due to lack of valid data.

MQ-1 Predator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And when the current UAV faced off against a manned opponent, it lost, not because its pilot is any less capable than the MIG's human pilot, but because it was grossly overmatched in terms of aircraft capability.

The current generation of UAVs is half the cost of the current generation of manned fighters. So if the next generation of aerial combat vehicles replace the cockpit space once reserved for a human with hardware intended to enhance its lethality, it will be just as costly as its manned version. The remote human pilot will be fully aware of this fact and will not be so willing to engage a fight when so grossly overmatched as the MIG-Predator example above.

The satellite links between aircraft and remote pilot are encrypted and decrypted, resulting in a delay that can take up to two seconds between human command and system response. That is why the current generation of UAVs must be launched and recovered by local human operators before handing controls to remote human operators when the aircraft is fully airborne. Today, against ground targets who are restricted to two dimensions mobility, we can afford to this 1.5 sec delay, even when it is airborne, the third dimension allow us the physical latitude to have patience for this delay. In future wars, if this delay continues to exist between command and response for all fighters, and our adversary decided not to take the unmanned route, we could lose the war.

This is far from comprehensive of issues of concerns regarding a fully unmanned fighter and a fully unmanned aerial combat force.

Such as engaging multiple targets while fidgeting around with flight controls, trying to maintain a certain altitude, velocity or maneuvering away from enemy detection/fire etc. As we progress, aeronautics are steadily being integrated to astronautics so great ranges in atmospheres will be experienced which will be harder for human pilots to control desired velocities all the while in the future, avionics will be progress to have greater number of target acquisitions, too many for humans to effectively multi-task with. Of course, what I've listed are superficial and are only a few points on the list. With the rapid pace of technology, it's common sense that human workload will decrease with robotics taking more control over matters, and this, is true for all new tech.

 

[lockh33d]

no trollish intentions..........but mate.......your minds......as u think......consists/made up of all the d great brains from all over d world........and not USA alone..........


jst spare a minute and think......wat if......all those immigrant geniuses return to their own country.............will u still be d best/advanced???

So what, USA itself is mostly an immigrant country. If citizens of the world decide to reside in the US, it makes them citizens of the USA from then on out. Thus, in the end, they are American minds and American minds move and shape the world after all.

 

[gambit]

Such as engaging multiple targets while fidgeting around with flight controls, trying to maintain a certain altitude, velocity or maneuvering away from enemy detection/fire etc.

That is happening now. And there is no 'fidgeting' around in the cockpit. The F-16 pilot can switch from air-air to air-ground mode with literally a single finger action. All flight controls limits and radar modes automatically reconfigured themselves.

As we progress, aeronautics are steadily being integrated to astronautics so great ranges in atmospheres will be experienced which will be harder for human pilots to control desired velocities all the while in the future, avionics will be progress to have greater number of target acquisitions, too many for humans to effectively multi-task with. Of course, what I've listed are superficial and are only a few points on the list. With the rapid pace of technology, it's common sense that human workload will decrease with robotics taking more control over matters, and this, is true for all new tech.

Too vague. Essentially...There is no such thing as a 'pilotless' vehicle. What we are doing is increasing the distance between the human operator and the vehicle itself. The pilot is still required, just not literally with the aircraft, therefore, his burden or workload remains the same. The final decision to engage which target, air or ground, does not lie with the aircraft but with the pilot, no matter if he is with the aircraft or at a remote location. The advantage of having the pilot physically with the aircraft is that he is exposed to all factors the battlefield environment contain, whereas with remote control, those factors are inevitably filtered and can possibly give the human operator a false sense of clarity and certainty of situation.

 

[gambit]

Better, much better. Human bodies are exposed to G-Force and only take a so much amount before the energy rips our bodies apart. With metals and composites, it's a different story.

On the surface this is a valid generalization. But as always there are details...

g-force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The record for peak experimental horizontal g-force tolerance is held by acceleration pioneer John Stapp, in a series of rocket sled deceleration experiments in which he survived forces up to 46.2 times the force of gravity for less than a second.

There is a difference between 'instantaneous' and 'sustained' G-forces. As Stapp's experiment showed, the organic, which is largely liquid in constitution, can withstand incredible 'instant' G-force without immediate fatal injuries. It is with 'sustained' G-forces that the 9g limits are calculated. Air combat theorists and exceptional pilots John Boyd and Chuck Yeager showed that in a fight, the aircraft that has the superior instant g-turn rate can more quickly position a pilot into an advantage than one with superior sustain g-turn rate. Instant g-turn is from how quickly can you change direction while sustain g-turn is how long can you maintain that turn rate AFTER you entered the maneuver. Other influential factors are airspeed and altitude at the time of the maneuver. That is why the F-86, with its superior hydraulics assisted FLCS, consistently allow US pilots to prevail over the MIG-15, despite the MIG's superior sustained g-turn rate. We replicated Boyd's and Yeager's MIG-15 flights with more modern studies and the conclusions are the same...

http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA238456

Angular reserve (the maximum heading change the aircraft can generate post-stall before slowing to a turn rate equal to or less than the maximum pre-stall turn rate) produced results of up to 40 degrees of heading change in approximately one second. This turn rate exceeds all maximum instantaneous turn rates for current front line fighters. When this was analytically applied to a tactical maneuver consisting of a 180 degree turn followed by tracking the nose of the aircraft for one second, time savings of up to 20% were obtained. This type of savings would allow a pilot to obtain the first shot in a tactical engagement.

The g-limit argument for the removal of the human pilot from the aerial battlefield is not a convincing one. In a fight between two fighters where one has a superior instant g-turn rate, if that pilot know his opponent's capabilities, he would not allow himself to be placed into a turning contest against his opponent. Instead, he would induce a turning engagement and once his opponent is in the turn, he would use his superior instant g-turn capability and exit the turn. This is why the F-16 and F-18 are so feared.

 

[Developereo]

Aircraft, of any generation, are only a stopgap solution.

Eventually, space will be weaponized, which will narrow the field of players to a handful of countries. Any country which cannot launch satellites will be

 

[Vassnti]

The 'next generation' fighter will be MANNED, have active radar cancellation capability, its avionics will be automated that it will allow the pilot to control UAVs as needed.

Interesting to think of a pilot in a "6th gen" as a quarterback to a flock of semi autonomus drones, gleep go right , glitch ecm, bolts watch my 6.

In 20 years time computers might be small enough and fast enough to be given a general task and work out for them selves how to do it. We might not have artificial intelligence by then but we should have a computer as smart as a Marine

 

[xebex]

americans always try to be ahead at least one gen. ahead of rest...
imo the last manned planes are F-22,F-35 and PAK-FA.
the next gen. has to be a UCAV.

I absolutely agree with you. Next generation aircraft would be like F22 or F35 but without a pilot onboard. Not like today's UAV but one that have the ablity to do dogfight if needed.

 

[xebex]

well my idea of a sixth gen fighter wud be a sleathy nuclear powered UCAV......


hows dat??

then all u need is a bullet to make mushroom cloud.. just kiddin.

IMO, next generation weapons will be green. Go green!

 

[gambit]

Interesting to think of a pilot in a "6th gen" as a quarterback to a flock of semi autonomus drones, gleep go right , glitch ecm, bolts watch my 6.

The 'swing wing' could have a comeback. We could have a variable sweep wing fighter with active radar cancellation capability. Deploy the wings for high altitude long duration surveillance. When the time come, the Army will launch a wave of cruise missiles, or 'suicidal drones' if you will, the Air Force pilot will sweep his wings, descent and take controls of the drones. The technology base is already available.

 

[Trisonics]

no trollish intentions..........but mate.......your minds......as u think......consists/made up of all the d great brains from all over d world........and not USA alone..........


jst spare a minute and think......wat if......all those immigrant geniuses return to their own country.............will u still be d best/advanced???

not true, its a common misconception that we Indians hold in India. You have to get into grad school to know the realities. You will be surprised at the knowledge level some of them hold. In India some of us study engineering almost by force since nothing else will get us a living like those software engineers, whereas these guys study because they want to be engineers and hence they spend far more time learning basics than we do. The immigrants contribute heavily as well but its not just them all the way or because of them..its significant enough that it cannot be ignored.

 

[lockh33d]

That is happening now. And there is no 'fidgeting' around in the cockpit. The F-16 pilot can switch from air-air to air-ground mode with literally a single finger action. All flight controls limits and radar modes automatically reconfigured themselves.


Too vague. Essentially...There is no such thing as a 'pilotless' vehicle. What we are doing is increasing the distance between the human operator and the vehicle itself. The pilot is still required, just not literally with the aircraft, therefore, his burden or workload remains the same. The final decision to engage which target, air or ground, does not lie with the aircraft but with the pilot, no matter if he is with the aircraft or at a remote location. The advantage of having the pilot physically with the aircraft is that he is exposed to all factors the battlefield environment contain, whereas with remote control, those factors are inevitably filtered and can possibly give the human operator a false sense of clarity and certainty of situation.

Not quite, there may be operators in the master controls of an UAV however, that is still taken out of today's context. The general view of the 6th Gen fighter is more controls are "digitalized." Say you're in a rolling scissors with another combat aircraft, trying to out flank each other and get on the other's six, if the systems were automated, there would be no mistakes in the timing of maneuvers, especially at future cruising velocities, Mach 8+ ie. One, human bodies might not be able to sustain gravitational acceleration nor would it be an easy task obtaining a lock-on. Since as you said before, there are no "certain" details of the 6th gen requirements, I'd take into assumption that aeronautics and astronautics are going to be integrated for consideration with the arrival of the next era, after all, what's wrong with thinking slightly sci-fi? If the Army can focus high intensity light waves from a rifle sized object, I don't see why space wars can't become a reality in the next 20 years.

And like you say, "All flight controls limits and radar modes automatically reconfigured themselves."

From that, what is a human pilot needed for?

 

[syntax_error]

So if every thing goes unmanned ... i guess the best counter resource to cultivate would still be manned " Hackers"
Seriously... im a techie ... but .. still dont like the full automation (full AI) capability of any system ...
my 2 cents

 

[sreekimpact]

what about a space station to dock UAVs .so that they can be quickly deployed.

 

[Macbeth]

Well, in terms of maneuverability or speed, there can be no further advancements, because the pilot cannot take more than the current limits of G-force on them, unless they make the plane pilot less.

wright brothers too might have thought so