# End of the manned fighter?.



## time expired (28 Jul 2009)

Defence Secretary Gates recently stated that the F22 and the F35 would
be the last manned fighter/attack aircraft the forces would buy.This was
included in a story about remote controlled aerial vehicles in the US Air
Force,on CNN,last week.
The British Defence Minister was way ahead of him,in the 60s he announced
the demise of the manned fighter due to the development of the SAM,he
was wrong,however he was knighted for his foresight and all he really
accomplished was putting the final nail in the coffin of the British aircraft
industry.
To me the very idea of a computer nerd "pilot" sitting in his airconditioned
office in his summer weight uniform and low shoes, murdering people 
thousands of miles away, between sips of coffee is immoral and very 
disturbing.If these UAVs ever face an air force with a halfway efficient
air defence system surely the UAV pilot will be at a tremendous dis-
advantage sitting in front of his 2 dimensional computer screen sending
info to his aircraft over satelites 36,000 miles above the earths surface.
Anyone out there with thoughts on the subject?.
                                 Regards


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## Good2Golf (28 Jul 2009)

TE, I think the case for an entirely unmanned fighter force, or any air capability for that matter, is only marginally stronger than the case to replace soldiers with robots.  Yes, we have UAVs (still 'manned', just remotely...some functional autonomy, but note they're not called AAVs - autonomous air vehicles) and we do have remote robots, especially to provide capabilities such as EOD, etc... but I don't see a sweeping automation of entire militaries, or even major components therin.  Perhaps hundreds of years in the future, fighting forces may be largely automatons, but not in your or my lifetimes.

Cheers
G2G


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## Ex-Dragoon (28 Jul 2009)

> murdering people thousands of miles away


Personally I was more disturbed by this comment then any others. Is that how you view pilots as well?


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## Good2Golf (28 Jul 2009)

Ex-Dragoon said:
			
		

> Personally I was more disturbed by this comment then any others. Is that how you view pilots as well?



...or soldiers, for that matter.

We conduct operations according to the Law of Armed Conflict.  Taking of life where required and accepted within global societal standards (Geneva Convention, etc...) is not murder.

G2G


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## GAP (28 Jul 2009)

Replacing pilots harks back to this thread also

In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable 
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/87990/post-860688/topicseen.html#new

Nothing yet replaces SA of a pilot or an infantryman.....


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## time expired (28 Jul 2009)

That is not at all how I view pilots at all,in fact quite the opposite,I guess
you could almost call me a fighter pilot groupie I have been fascinated by
pilots and air combat since I was a kid.Economic factors kept me from 
fulfilling my dream of becoming one myself however the fascination never
left me.The UAV "pilot" does his killing without any risk to himself,although
he may break a fingernail on his keyboard,and that fact seems to me is what
separates him from the real pilot and make his killing almost akin to murder.
That being said I suspect that some of these men will, in the long term, 
suffer from psychological problems.
                                      Regards


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## Ex-Dragoon (28 Jul 2009)

Is it murder for wanting to keep your troops as safe as possible? Are sailors murderers when they fire a harpoon into another ship? Are the artillery types murderers when they lob a shell into an enemy position? Very poor choice of words!


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## Michael OLeary (28 Jul 2009)

time expired said:
			
		

> The UAV "pilot" does his killing without any risk to himself,although
> he may break a fingernail on his keyboard,and that fact seems to me is what
> separates him from the real pilot and make his killing almost akin to murder.



How much risk do you feel a combatant must be under so that his or her acts are not "almost akin to murder" in your opinion?

What about a fighter pilot who releases a laser guided munition while thousands of feet above any credible counter-air threat? How far away from the battlefield or threat turns a combatant into a "murderer" in your opinion?


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## time expired (28 Jul 2009)

Mea culpa,Mea culpa,I suppose murder was a poor choice of words and
I apologise to anyone who may have been offended, however I still find 
this remote control, no risk killing ,disturbing.
I think the idea of the warrior disappearing to be replaced by the computer
geek in uniform equally disturbing and hopefully premature.
                                   Regards


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## Michael OLeary (28 Jul 2009)

And you are still avoiding the question put to you.  On your inferred spectrum between two "warriors" beating each other to death with clubs and  the "push-button bureacrat", where do you place the point of transition where you feel the risk and proximity to the enemy's death is acceptable to be considered a "warrior"?


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## rampage800 (28 Jul 2009)

TE

Its all a team effort, you'll be happy to know that a lot of times there are still guys on the ground helping the UAVs out, sometimes they find their tgts through various int capes but often its still the guy on the spot.
 As Michael mentioned I don't really see the difference between the bombers dropping JDAMs and the UAV guys, I would think most of the time it' might be more "personal" for the UAV guy, usually when he's dropping he's zoomed right in on the tgt, watching exactly where or who the bombs are hitting. Everyone has a job to do and it doesn't make it any less whether you doing it from FL200 or 40km away, the end result is the same.


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## Good2Golf (28 Jul 2009)

Many of us have seen feeds that make your retrospective blood curdle...PTSD is a reality for many UAV/UCAV operators.  I shouldn't think folks are thinking that air conditioning in a GCS protects the operators from mental stresses that, although derived through different actions, can have the same damaging follow-on effect...


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## zorro (28 Jul 2009)

time expired said:
			
		

> That is not at all how I view pilots at all,in fact quite the opposite,I guess
> you could almost call me a fighter pilot groupie I have been fascinated by
> pilots and air combat since I was a kid.Economic factors kept me from
> fulfilling my dream of becoming one myself however the fascination never
> ...



War is hell.

I don't quite understand your logic. Wouldn't mitigating risk to our soldiers through the use of technology (IE. UAVs) be a good thing? I don't think the use of UAVs in warfare is an inhumane way of engaging an enemy when operations are conducted in accordance with the LOAC. 

Perhaps you need to attend a few more repats to appreciate the difference this sort of advantage can make on the battlefield.


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## daftandbarmy (29 Jul 2009)

time expired said:
			
		

> Mea culpa,Mea culpa,I suppose murder was a poor choice of words and
> I apologise to anyone who may have been offended, however I still find
> this remote control, no risk killing ,disturbing.
> I think the idea of the warrior disappearing to be replaced by the computer
> ...



Yeah, it's not like laying a minefield designed to destroy tanks and infantry, or shelling a village that you're taking fire from (where there may be civilians), or bombing a whole city into rubble etc etc etc.

Sherman said that 'war is hell' for a reason.

On the other hand, any technological advance designed to get rid of pilots forever has my vote. They pull too many hot chicks away from we knuckle draggers for my liking.  :crybaby:


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## Good2Golf (29 Jul 2009)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> ...On the other hand, any technological advance designed to get rid of pilots forever has my vote. They pull too many hot chicks away from we knuckle draggers for my liking.  :crybaby:



D&B, clearly you have not gone out for a night on the town with an A-10 driver! Their SOP is to "take one for the team" right out of the gate!  ;D

Cheers
G2G


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## time expired (29 Jul 2009)

All the people mentioned in the above posts are part of the risk taking
fraternity,in other words,warriors.The fighter pilot dropping ordnance
from 5000 feet is not absolutely sure that the bad guys may not pick
this day to fire their newly acquired SAM,the arty guys are never safe from 
counter battery fire,just getting to the gun position was probably tough
enough and the sailors firing the Harpoon are only able to because their
better training enabled them to get their shot off first.
The above situations comes down to basic question of us or them and
is the main justification for killing in war only psychopaths enjoy killing
for killings sake.
The guy sitting in front of his computer screen and killing from 10,000
miles away is something new and that is what disturbs me,maybe deep 
down inside I just do not want to believe that the fighter pilot will go the
way of the dinosaur.
While I was thinking about this,something else occurred to me,how easy
it will be for politicians to engage in this type of warfare,no bodybags to
upset the electorate,no embedded reporters to spread bad news, an absolute
dream for politicians.
                                Regards


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## aesop081 (29 Jul 2009)

time expired said:
			
		

> The guy sitting in front of his computer screen and killing from 10,000
> miles away is something new and that is what disturbs me,



He/she may be thousands of miles from the event but he/she is not removed from it. In fact, there has been several problems develop with UAV crews who spend an entire shift killing bad guys and then have to somehow switch it off and go home and live life as if nothing had happenned and carryon with their wives and kids.


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## Michael OLeary (29 Jul 2009)

time expired said:
			
		

> All the people mentioned in the above posts are part of the risk taking
> fraternity,in other words,warriors.The fighter pilot dropping ordnance
> from 5000 feet is not absolutely sure that the bad guys may not pick
> this day to fire their newly acquired SAM,the arty guys are never safe from
> ...



So any risk, however fleeting or hypothetical, is all that qualifies one to be a member of the "risk taking fraternity,in other words,warriors"?



			
				time expired said:
			
		

> While I was thinking about this,something else occurred to me,how easy
> it will be for politicians to engage in this type of warfare,no bodybags to
> upset the electorate,no embedded reporters to spread bad news, an absolute
> dream for politicians.



Your extrapolation from your example of combatants without risk to a type of warfighting without bodybags reminds me of the predictions that warfare could be fought by airpower alone, and in my opinion, are similarly unfounded.


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## nikoc (7 Aug 2009)

a) Hate to be a stickler for units, but geosynch. satellites are at 36000 km, not miles

b) I don't think a UAV will ever be able to completely substitute a fighter because of the lag in response (picture someone trying to fly anything with a 2 second lag on the controls), unless the UAVs have a high level of autonomy, which brings us to the whole autonomous killing machine question...


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## brihard (7 Aug 2009)

"Maybe they'll be able to do without us someday. Maybe some mad genius with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, and force it  to surrender or  die  - without killing that  gang of your own people they've got imprisoned down there. I wouldn't know; I'm not a genius, I'm an M. I. In the meantime, until they build a machine to replace us, my mates can handle that job and I might be some help on it, too."

-- Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers




'Surgical' war has been oft promised and seldom delivered on for decades now. At the end of the day human beings, will still be relied on to wage violence on each other, as war ultimately has human causes and wears a human face in its objectives and its consequences.

Granted, this is coming from a self-confessed infantard, but no innovations in air warfare are ever going to eliminate the bodybags or the TV talking points. Without trying to politicize particular conflicts, it is the very phenomenon of political and military leaders pretending that war can be clean or quick that has led to come of the messes Western nations are in today. 'Shock and awe' led to an occupation that is just winding down now with (conservatively) tens of thousands dead as a result. When we as nations unleash military force in pursuit of our national interest, we have to be damned careful to approach it with intellectual honesty and realize exactly what it is we're unleashing.

The end with another of my favourite quotes, 

""It is well that war is so terrible-we would grow too fond of it!"

-Robert E. Lee


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## Kirkhill (8 Aug 2009)

Time Expireds underlying point is a good one.

But I don't find the morality as disturbing as the practicality.  If conflict ever becomes the realm of "automaton vs automaton" then it will have reached the level of the WWE.  We already are concerned that society is divorced from the people fighting for it.  There is a fairly tentative connection between the warriors and the parent society in the West as it is.

If that link is ever broken completely then the people in society will have no "dog in the fight", no "skin".  They will be nothing more than spectators in the stands with no adverse consequences for failure.

As war becomes more automated, allowing soldiers to kill greater numbers while incurring fewer casualties, the net tendency may be for society to see war as a more "supportable" option against the "thems" of this world.  I believe that tendency would increase if the opposing teams were nothing more than remote controlled tin-cans.

However, I also believe the problem would solve itself.  Just like any well run match of "the Old Firm" (Papist Celtic and Proddy Rangers) when the result on the field is unsatisfactory the discussion moves to the stands and then the blood really starts to flow.

Osama's  mob really did just that.  They took the fight to the stands because they couldn't win on the field.

Edited to remove Freudian Slip.


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## a_majoor (8 Aug 2009)

The UK came to a similar conclusion in 1957, with an infamous "White Paper" that essentially eliminated manned aircraft from future consideration as missiles were predicted to replace them.

This not only wasn't true, but also had detrimental effects on the entire aviation industry in the UK, effectively destroying a generation of aircraft, designers and even companies. (Canada had a similar problem when the AVRO Arrow program was killed, although for entirely different reasons).

Prediction: UACV's will need to be monitored by something like an AWACS in the battle zone, and in order for the controller platform to survive, it will resemble a large, two seat fighter like an F-15 E "Strike Eagle".


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