• UK unveils new Tempest fighter jet model
    43 replies, posted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44848294
Why would you ever want to use a jet as a drone?
Drunk and need to get home? Summon your jet to pick you up and take you
optional manning means you can keep pilots rested and out of risk on mundane but risky things like ferry flights or flight tests, and also allows for the option of taking the pilot out of risky situations like air combat or SEAD operations, whilst maintaining them for situations where the human mind is superior for the task like close support or identifying between friendly and enemy forces this is just leading into mostly unmanned fighter aircraft though
Seems to take a number of design cues from the F-22 and F-35 as referenced in the article. They say that it's design is supposed to make it hard to detect by radar, but I wonder if it's going to actually be a stealth jet, or just kind of stealthy? Eg. RF absorbing paint, thermal management, special intakes and exhaust vents, the works.
Drones will probably be the future of warfare IMO, why risk a life where you could send a bot? Sure bots aren't perfect but there are lots of situations where you don't need millisecond reaction times, its why drones see such common use as bombers. That being said the only thing stopping more widespread use of drone craft is an EU rule stating that you may not allow a machine to make an automated decision and its probably going to go out the window at some point. Relevant Tom Scott video https://youtu.be/rTwg3oWnUgc
you can also push the airframe to its absolute limits without risk of a pilot turning into soup
The Telegraph has a video winch shows it off at a few more angles https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/16/britain-aiming-first-nation-have-fleet-unmanned-fighter-jets/
Lots of buzzwords with no meaning there tbh
Forgive my ignorance, I'm sure anyone who knows anything about military engineering has had more than enough of wholly ignorant people asking dumb questions. Wouldn't something designed specifically for use as a drone be better for that than something designed to be piloted? If you're planning around a future of unmanned aircraft, what you'd want is something designed to be unmanned from the ground up, right? Or are the design concessions you have to make to create something pilotable not all that significant?
would be the first tail-less canard-less stealth fighter if they stick to the design
Can it fly
Britain made the best jet aircraft in the world from the end of WWII until the mid '50s, but we really dropped the ball on that one. It doesn't help that we gave the Russians the design for the Nene engine the Russians used in the MiG 15 either... America weren't best pleased about that one and the Soviets didn't even pay us. I'm really glad to see us starting again.
it's way too risky to invest billions of dollars into tech that may not even work. there will be a very significant transition period before we'll see any remotely controlled major military hardware also drones are have a catastrophic worst-case in electronic warfare, which will play a major role in future symmetrical/near-peer wars that 5th gen fighters are designed to fight in
Huh. I never thought I'd see the day we invested in an airframe that wasn't either a collab project with other European nations or just bought off the Yanks. [QUOTE=]The hope is to see it flying by 2035.[/QUOTE] Hahaha. Yeah, good luck with that.
It's unlikely you'd use a drone for SEAD or air combat. The moment an electronic warfare unit switches on their jammers you're aircraft will basically become combat ineffective.
Two main reasons: You don't risk a pilot's life, and G Tolerances are purely limited by the air frame rather than the pilot's physicality. Yeah the F-22 might be able to do some sweet ass maneuvers but it's still not going to pull more than 9G's, and not hold 9G's more than a couple seconds, because a pilot just can't tolerate that. The F-22's frame is definitely capable of more than 9G's, though. Take the pilot out and suddenly you can push it a lot further, especially given it's thrust to weight ratio and internal payload
The plane would still need a nose section for aerodynamic purposes, so you are going to have that space anyway. Making room for a pilot is a fairly minor concern. The pilot's controls in this plane are just talking to the computer, the same as the ground controller's would.
The moment war becomes automated is the moment we are well and truly fucked because the personal costs of war that are the backbone of most peace efforts will fade away and die. The usage of bots in warfare not only pose legal, but massive ethical quandaries that will most likely be ignored in total war scenarios and as such should never be adopted or used.
War is gonna be fuckin weird when there's no human lives on the line but I don't really see how that poses an ethical quandary.
There's always going to be human lives on the line, do you honestly think it would all just be a giant battle bots match? Ethically we're talking about autonomous robots killing people ie there's no human element involved in the decision making. No compassion, no judgement, no emotion. That's all fine and dandy when you've got robots vs. robots, but that is never going to happen. Sure you could program them to look out for signs of surrender and analyze the threat of injured or juvenile combatants, but whose to say everyone is going to follow those rules? What happens when the next ISIS just programs them to kill everything? The human element allows for an individual to decide what they're doing is right or wrong, and unless we start talking AI (which is a whole other conversation) that's not going to happen with a robot.
One of the primary arguments against bots is that they reduce the political cost of going to war. The public is less likely to care about machines being used in some conflict than soldiers. You also have to worry about what unscrupulous but technologically capable countries would command their machines to do. Most of the moral issues with bots actually have to do with how humans would want to use them. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of autonomous ground fighting units.
Would rather not have fighter pilots be put out of a job, thanks.
Is this a serious post?
That's a nice looking jet.
i know it's a buyers market and all (and fuck the UK for basically being international arms dealers/money launderers....) but why ANOTHER high priced fighter jet? TWO BILLION invested in currently existing technology? i'm just saying why make another gun that goes wherever you want to kill something, when you can just make ONE BIG GUN that sits at home and kills anything anywhere on earth?
http://static2.uk.businessinsider.com/image/58cb0bf8dd08957b468b4b55-480/nuclear-weapons-blast-explosion-test-operation-plumbbob-priscilla.jpg
So we've spent a bunch on euro fighters and f35s while most of the fighting we've done recently has been bombing middle eastern huts with Tornados (spending an average years salary per run) and now we go and buy another fighter? We have fighters and we have multi role jets and they're new. All the while the Police are underfunded leading to a crime wave, NHS is underfunded, we've had austerity for years and we're about to brexit which will cost us even more money. This government is fucking stupid. I see where those dumbass Libertarian types are coming from, they argue they shouldn't pay taxes because the government wastes the money - right now I feel like they're actually onto something.
Perfect for a Post-Brexit UK, just in case.
what
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