Rise of the Drone

[ditchman]

was reading about the reticence of the govt to invest in the replacement of the Eurofighter...........also reading about the expedential improvement of drones being developed and used in Ukraine..and the use of guided munitions....

Are we looking at the slow demise of manned/womanned EXPENSIVE fighter planes....in preferance of the Drone..........im sure various agencies are playing about with A.I. incorporated into various drones................what the russians seem to be having success with is air launched glide bombs....hence the possible delivery of lorry mounted LASER weapons...to counteract this successful menace.......

there are those people who say human piloted fighters will never be replaced............but the speed of the development of the Drone makes me uncertain........

im sure TIGHTCHOKE  will be along shortly .....he likes his planes

 

any thoughts.............(make a change from talking about the Olympics...police brutality etc nudist shooting colonies) 

[12gauge82]

2 minutes ago, ditchman said:

was reading about the reticence of the govt to invest in the replacement of the Eurofighter...........also reading about the expedential improvement of drones being developed and used in Ukraine..and the use of guided munitions....

Are we looking at the slow demise of manned/womanned EXPENSIVE fighter planes....in preferance of the Drone..........im sure various agencies are playing about with A.I. incorporated into various drones................what the russians seem to be having success with is air launched glide bombs....hence the possible delivery of lorry mounted LASER weapons...to counteract this successful menace.......

there are those people who say human piloted fighters will never be replaced............but the speed of the development of the Drone makes me uncertain........

im sure TIGHTCHOKE  will be along shortly .....he likes his planes

 

any thoughts.............(make a change from talking about the Olympics...police brutality etc nudist shooting colonies) 

I'm sure fighters will be unmanned soon enough. To the best of my knowledge, one of the biggest limitations of the maneuverability of fighter jets at the moment is the pilot not being able to handle the G force. 

[ditchman]

1 minute ago, 12gauge82 said:

I'm sure fighters will be unmanned soon enough. To the best of my knowledge, one of the biggest limitations of the maneuverability of fighter jets at the moment is the pilot not being able to handle the G force. 

think alot of it is down to cost and maintenance............im talking about the eventual complete phase out of EXPENSIVE UNRELIABLE MAINTENANCE HEAVY...fighter jets......

you are right about G-Force......but think about it............Dogfighting=G-Force.................now that is a pointless occupation......old habits die hard...

we have come from Biggles to A.I. Drones..........Biggles is simply unaffordable

[B686]

Chap I know uses one for fishing. He fishes a large gravel pit about 75 acres. He sends it up to find fish and see where other people are fishing.  Saves him loads of time as he only does overnighters after work and packs up around 5am to go to work again. 

[bruno22rf]

My brother in law has been flying drones over the middle east for several years now - he's based in Nevada and is a decorated RAF officer so I'm guessing the age of the drone is already here? As for replacing the Eurofighter we should buy the F15, stupendous Aircraft even though it's getting long in the tooth.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Tempest is on course.

Eurofighter will go on for a long time yet.

F35 Lightning will go on for a while yet.

The latest F15s are extremely capable and extremely expensive.

Drones have their place in the whole set up.

Edited July 28 by TIGHTCHOKE
An errant e

[ditchman]

in another ...say...2 ? years what will the above expensive complicated fighters do ...that a AI drone cant do 

its all (well most of it) going to be down to cost and effectiveness

[TIGHTCHOKE]

4 minutes ago, ditchman said:

in another ...say...2 ? years what will the above expensive complicated fighters do ...that a AI drone cant do 

its all (well most of it) going to be down to cost and effectiveness

Certainly is, many aircraft in service currently will be expected to "soldier on"

The next generation are on the drawing board, but will be 15 years before we see them, if indeed we do.

[enfieldspares]

Payload and range are the two factors that, now, the manned all-around fighter bomber has an advantage in over all other delivery systems. A missile which has the range or a shell which has the payload cannot react to a target of opportunity or to a target changing its location. Essentially they are "dumb" and cannot react to a changed circumstance one on their way. The manned fighter-bomber can but so, too, can the camera equipped drone such as a Reaper. There will I am sure come a time when the camera equipped drone can achieve the payload and range of the manned fighter-bomber. After that all it will lack is the required 360 degree vision to protect itself from being shot down by a missile or even machine cannon enemy manned fighter-bomber approaching from the rear, from below, from above. That day is a long way off

Edited July 28 by enfieldspares

[Grandalf]

If the manned fighter can have all that 360 degree 'vision' (Radar etc), then why can't a drone have it fed into it's AI 'pilot'?

[enfieldspares]

5 minutes ago, Grandalf said:

If the manned fighter can have all that 360 degree 'vision' (Radar etc), then why can't a drone have it fed into it's AI 'pilot'?

No. Not radar but Mark 1 Eyeball! Still reacts quicker than even the latest radar technology.

[Raja Clavata]

2 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

I'm sure fighters will be unmanned soon enough. To the best of my knowledge, one of the biggest limitations of the maneuverability of fighter jets at the moment is the pilot not being able to handle the G force. 

Another factor and advantage of AI is that you can give it more direct, lower level, control over the various actuators controlling the plane. For a human pilot the controls are increasingly abstracted. Those different layers of interface between the AI and humans is another clear advantage.

I knew this intuitively based on the same experience in autonomous racing cars and checked with colleagues working in defence who confirmed.

On weaponised drones, AI is already deployed and active on both sides in Ukraine. 

We have an AI enhanced swarming drone demonstrator where each drone autonomously adjusts its monitoring zone in real time based on the size of the swarm.

I’d be very surprised if AI enhanced weaponised swarming drones weren’t already established in the NATO armoury.

2 hours ago, ditchman said:

in another ...say...2 ? years what will the above expensive complicated fighters do ...that a AI drone cant do 

its all (well most of it) going to be down to cost and effectiveness

Different platforms for different missions / objectives.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, There is a  film on Drone warfare  called Good Kill , worth watching if of interest

[Raja Clavata]

33 minutes ago, Grandalf said:

If the manned fighter can have all that 360 degree 'vision' (Radar etc), then why can't a drone have it fed into it's AI 'pilot'?

Depends on the type of drone. Cheap expendable or kamikaze drones don’t warrant the cost but a swarming drone fleet could have surveillance drones supporting them, potentially with conventional human piloted jets overseeing the whole gig. 

[ditchman]

1 hour ago, enfieldspares said:

No. Not radar but Mark 1 Eyeball! Still reacts quicker than even the latest radar technology.

find that difficult to believe

[ph5172]

I think the issue at the moment with drones is range and payload. 

Also the versatility of a modern fighter with multiple load outs allows for mission change without much issue. 
 

From what I understand that the bigger drones are remote piloted often from miles away and are deployed by a local team for a specific mission and are perfect for that job but they lack the above. 
 

I think the plane will soldier on for our lifetime 

[Rewulf]

12 hours ago, Raja Clavata said:

Depends on the type of drone. Cheap expendable or kamikaze drones don’t warrant the cost but a swarming drone fleet could have surveillance drones supporting them, potentially with conventional human piloted jets overseeing the whole gig. 

This clip is from 7 years ago, long before the small kamikaze drone 'revolution' in Ukraine, and before more advanced AI systems.
A plane dropped 'killer' drone swarm, with individual AI targeting software is likely already a reality.

 

[Rewulf]

Or this one from 4 years ago, produced as fiction, or is it ?

 

[wymberley]

16 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

I'm sure fighters will be unmanned soon enough. To the best of my knowledge, one of the biggest limitations of the maneuverability of fighter jets at the moment is the pilot not being able to handle the G force. 

Have to say I don't KNOW but am not so sure. Many years ago I made a plaque in the form of a desk-top pen holder representing the damage and the repair of a wing which was presented to the pilot that had cracked the most wings during one of our annual deployments. Even allowing for modern materials, I tend to think that any airframe which is designed to frequently withstand loads beyond which a pilot wearing an anti G suit is able to do, in all probability is likely to be so heavy that it's unable to get airborne and even if it can, its high fuel and minimal pay loads will be such as to render it not a viable proposition. 

[Penelope]

16 hours ago, B686 said:

Chap I know uses one for fishing. He fishes a large gravel pit about 75 acres. He sends it up to find fish and see where other people are fishing.  Saves him loads of time as he only does overnighters after work and packs up around 5am to go to work again. 

I wonder if that's the one that I nearly took out of the sky with a 22miller and throwing stick, whilst spying on me.

[Penelope]

52 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

Or this one from 4 years ago, produced as fiction, or is it ?

 

Frightening and probably not far from the truth.

 

Humankind should ask the the question, 'should we?' as opposed to 'can we?'!!

[Raja Clavata]

1 hour ago, Rewulf said:

Or this one from 4 years ago, produced as fiction, or is it ?

Thanks for sharing the vids. Of course it's fiction 😉 

Hopefully we'll never get to see what the US/NATO already have up their sleeves.

In terms of tiny footprint AI, the guys at liquid.ai are pushing the boundaries in the industrial space.

22 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I wonder if that's the one that I nearly took out of the sky with a 22miller and throwing stick, whilst spying on me.

They've been used by poachers over my syndicate to see if anyone is "on" the lake, fortunately since Google purchased the land the security is on-site 24/7 so that threat has gone away.

15 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Humankind should ask the the question, 'should we?' as opposed to 'can we?'!!

There's a ton of research on ethical killing machines and programming morality into killer robots. I can't find the reference but there's a brilliant article on ethical killer drones from a guy at Queens Belfast, apparently we ("the good guys") apply these principles to the battlefield whereas of course they ("the bad guys") don't.

[Penelope]

1 minute ago, Raja Clavata said:

They've been used by poachers over my syndicate to see if anyone is "on" the lake, fortunately since Google purchased the land the security is on-site 24/7 so that threat has gone away.

Are they going to back fill it to build on?

[Rewulf]

23 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Humankind should ask the the question, 'should we?' as opposed to 'can we?'!!

I think the 'can we' is established.
The 'should we' ? All it takes is a suitably created 'enemy' and it will be deployed 'for the greater good'

 

2 minutes ago, Raja Clavata said:

Of course it's fiction

That video was, but to say we dont already have the capability to do this is far from it.
This one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledyne_FLIR_Black_Hornet_Nano is already used by many western militaries, and though they dont speak of it being armed, the kind of charge used in the fictional video, would be easily mountable, integrating an autonomous AI system would not be hard either.

[Raja Clavata]

17 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Are they going to back fill it to build on?

That was the previous lot. Google want it for a data centre is the assumption, suggested an ultra secure Government supporting one. There is talk of the area around the lake being opened up as a country park but that ain't going work with 30ft depths.

13 minutes ago, Rewulf said:

That video was, but to say we dont already have the capability to do this is far from it.
This one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledyne_FLIR_Black_Hornet_Nano is already used by many western militaries, and though they dont speak of it being armed, the kind of charge used in the fictional video, would be easily mountable, integrating an autonomous AI system would not be hard either.

I don't know much and certainly not specifics, obviously, but I know a fair bit more than I'm posting here 😉