Three years of intensive effort? How long you think it takes to crank out a military pilot, junior version?

The question is not whether they will be able to play soccer, the question is, what do we want them to do? What are the additional missions that they are best suited to contribute toward that can save lives and improve the combat effectiveness of people? The robot:human ratio will definitely increase over time. The interesting question is what the limits are.

BB – Assume a world where the broadband network is everywhere you need it to be and that everything is getting smaller and lighter every year. Even if it’s not happening at the rate of Moore’s law, the equation is going to look better and better and better for the droids. Time is on their side. I think you’ll always need warriors, airborne and otherwise, but the mix could shift a lot. 30 years is an eternity for this techn0logy.

So what is it about aerial combat that would make robots in the air so much better than robots on the ground today?

re GNP vs defense spending.

Jumping to the macro, don’t disagree but I also don’t see your point. Manned vs unmanned is cost nuetral, even Bay acknowledges that. You know how much a Global Hawk costs, can you imagine the per unit cost of a sofware intensive UCAV? That nullifies/mitigates any cost effectiveness…

re- “In Harms Way”. Go back to ‘91 and count up our losses on our way to air superiority. Pretty light vs the level IADS they faced. Tactics and simple, predictable mishaps were to fault for many…

My point is, we are in a war, the Soviet Union ain’t coming back right away and we have a real and different war to fight right now. And, IMO, it doesn’t require a bunch o’Star War vehicles to gain same superiority over any nation on earth. The Israelis didn’t need unmanned to go into the world’s most advanced enemy IADS in Syria…

That said, there’s nothing wrong with advancing technology but there is a lot of big money out there amongst the industry and I think on this one they are selling a lotta future concepts ala A-12 to a lot of gullible folks who just see reducing the payroll as the major cost benefit of going to unmanned..The folks in charge have been making hay off reducing the size our military since the Cold War went away and they won’t soon desist.

Technology advancement ain’t a panacea for a tangible defense today but I acknowledge it has some aspects of ISR down pat although a lot o’big wing naval aircraft are over the beach really doing the heavy lifting ISR work because 4 engines can generate a lot o’watts…

b2

First, we will not be able to continue to outspend the world at a 5:1 rate. Basically, US spend as a percent of world defense expenditure is going to fall pretty dramatically, simply as a function of the faster growth rates of other economies over the next 20-30 years. So we damn well better continue to advance our technology edge in ways that improve the cost-effectiveness of fielding existing capabilities.

Second, our political will to sustain conflict is substantially diminished by casualties. So to the extent that we can send drones, airborne or otherwise, in harm’s way instead of people, it is certainly in our interest to expand that capability.

We are likely to be amazed at what missions drones will take on effectively or supplement 20 or 30 years from now.