Shenyang/Hongdu Li Jian ("Sharp Sword") UCAV prototype

[DeltaV]

Shenyang/Hongdu "Sharp Sword":


The possibly afterburning exhaust suggests that rear-aspect stealth is traded away for increased speed (likely in bursts). Or maybe the shorter, stealthy engine just is not ready yet.

Northrop-Grumman X-47B:

X-47B first carrier launch attempt today

[ladajo]

The Chinese suck at building jet engines.

[ladajo]

The US does not.

http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2013/05/14/ ... ed-launch/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57584 ... er-launch/

[Skipjack]

As I have said many times. The age of drone wars is uppon us.

[DeltaV]

As long as the drones don't try to take on manned fighters for the next few decades, they'll be OK.

F-22 specs
Maximum speed:
At altitude: Mach 2.25 (1,500 mph, 2,410 km/h)
Supercruise: Mach 1.82 (1,220 mph, 1,963 km/h)
Range: >1,600 nmi (1,840 mi, 2,960 km) with 2 external fuel tanks
Service ceiling: 65,000 ft (19,812 m)
Thrust/weight: 1.08 (1.26 with loaded weight & 50% fuel)
Maximum design g-load: -3.0/+9.0 g
Air to air loadout:
6× AIM-120 AMRAAM
2× AIM-9 Sidewinder

X-47B specs
Maximum speed: "high subsonic"
Cruise speed: 0.45 mach
Range: 2,100+ NM (3,889+ km)
Service ceiling: 40,000 ft (12,190 m)
Armament
2 × GBU-31 JDAM (905 kg each)(2000 lb)

[djolds1]

As long as the drones don't try to take on manned fighters for the next few decades, they'll be OK.

Do some googling on the rapidly expanding capabilities and fields IBM's Watson Near-AI-engine is being applied to. Pseudo-"Inspired" courses of action (i.e. 'human judgment') from artificial platforms are becoming more and more probable by the day. That solves the command & control part of autonomous drones/UCAVs/AKVs. Eliminate humans and designing the airframes for rapid and radical high-gee maneuvers becomes much easier. I.e. manned fighters die fast.

The only challenges to autonomous and highly capable UCAV development in the next decade are the massively dysfunctional military finance and acquisistions standards across most of the developed world, as well as the slow-burn financial crisis.

[DeltaV]

Do some googling on combat flight dynamics, nonlinear systems theory and how far machines have yet to go to match the broadband processing power, sensor fusion, inventiveness, intuition and experience of one well-trained human brain.

It will be decades, at best, before a UCAV can defeat a top-of-the-line fighter flown by a capable pilot. Pilots are currently trained to evade "AI" SAMs/AAMs, which can pull many more gees than a larger future UCAV.

Note that I am not saying that UCAVs can never reach that level of dogfighting.

By the time that capability is attained by UCAVs, however, compact, speed-of-light, directed-energy weapons and distributed-aperature sensors will nullify their high-gee advantage, and their small size will become a disadvantage.

As I have discussed here,
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1643&p=34763&sid=51 ... 9b4#p34763
and elsewhere.

[Skipjack]

Do some googling on combat flight dynamics, nonlinear systems theory and how far machines have yet to go to match the broadband processing power, sensor fusion, inventiveness, intuition and experience of one well-trained human brain.

It will be decades, at best, before a UCAV can defeat a top-of-the-line fighter flown by a capable pilot. Pilots are currently trained to evade "AI" SAMs/AAMs, which can pull many more gees than a larger future UCAV.

Note that I am not saying that UCAVs can never reach that level of dogfighting.

By the time that capability is attained by UCAVs, however, compact, speed-of-light, directed-energy weapons and distributed-aperature sensors will nullify their high-gee advantage, and their small size will become a disadvantage.

As I have discussed here,
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1643&p=34763&sid=51 ... 9b4#p34763
and elsewhere.

You are making the mistake in your assumption that you will have one UAV fight one manned fighter. In that situation, the manned fighter will most likely win. But, I forsee a future where you have several UAVs against one manned fighter. That will completely change the odds.
Plus, what happens, when you combine UAVs with manned fighters on the battlefield? Suddenly you can rewrite the rules.

[DeltaV]

"...the lasers could shoot between 50 and 100 mosquitoes per second."

Bring 'em on.

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/STO/Progr ... LADS).aspx
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/STO/Progr ... (ABC).aspx
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Progr ... HELS).aspx
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Progr ... LIBUR.aspx

[Skipjack]

And those same lasers cant shoot down manned fighters just as easily as drones? Putting aside that all these systems are AFAIK to big to be on a fighter jet.

[DeltaV]

And those same lasers cant shoot down manned fighters just as easily as drones?

If you had just read my link above:

"Dogfights" of the future will be more like drive-by shootings. The advantage will go to the weapons platform with the best sensors, the best fire control, the most weapon apertures and the most available power for the weapons employed. The small size of UAVs, touted as an advantage above, will become a disadvantage as maneuverability becomes immaterial, and the abilities to (a) resolve targets (sensor aperture, interferometric baseline), (b) bring a greater number of weapon apertures to bear (exterior area) and (c) provide a greater amount of power to each weapon (internal volume) become paramount.

So, if you want to turn your nimble little drone into a flying fortress similar in size/area/volume/power to it's manned fighter opponent, go ahead. But, then you won't be able to swarm the fighter in overwhelming numbers without bankrupting yourself, so it's back to mano-a-mecho. The automated fire control on each bird will be similar, but the fighter will have the additional advantage of unpredictable human decision making and higher-level strategizing.

Putting aside that all these systems are AFAIK to big to be on a fighter jet.

Wrong. And getting wronger every day. Not even counting game-changing advances in HTSCs, LENRs, metamaterial optics, etc.

[MSimon]

Drones + communications + precise navigation = long base line interferometry.

Bigger platforms will have the advantage. (bigger sensors) But UAVs are not out of the picture.

[choff]

One edge the drone has, totally expendable, the pilot would think himself not. Lose a drone, send up another one, like stamping out French fries, very demoralizing for the Taliban. Takes 12 years minimum to raise up and motivate a suicide bomber, in the same time the western world can build how many drones?

Canada might not be getting F35's, if that's the case I hope we get F18G's, block III with international pathway, adds a whole new dimension dogfighting with stealth planes.

[Skipjack]

And those same lasers cant shoot down manned fighters just as easily as drones?

If you had just read my link above:

"Dogfights" of the future will be more like drive-by shootings. The advantage will go to the weapons platform with the best sensors, the best fire control, the most weapon apertures and the most available power for the weapons employed. The small size of UAVs, touted as an advantage above, will become a disadvantage as maneuverability becomes immaterial, and the abilities to (a) resolve targets (sensor aperture, interferometric baseline), (b) bring a greater number of weapon apertures to bear (exterior area) and (c) provide a greater amount of power to each weapon (internal volume) become paramount.

So, if you want to turn your nimble little drone into a flying fortress similar in size/area/volume/power to it's manned fighter opponent, go ahead. But, then you won't be able to swarm the fighter in overwhelming numbers without bankrupting yourself, so it's back to mano-a-mecho. The automated fire control on each bird will be similar, but the fighter will have the additional advantage of unpredictable human decision making and higher-level strategizing.

Putting aside that all these systems are AFAIK to big to be on a fighter jet.

Wrong. And getting wronger every day. Not even counting game-changing advances in HTSCs, LENRs, metamaterial optics, etc.

Well right now they are too big for small fighter jets. The future may be different. But then, some drones right now are not that much smaller than manned fighters. They save money however, because of the things needed for supporting and protecting a human life are missing.
Finally, having drones that are as capable (or even almost as capable) as manned fighter jets, means that you can employ completely new tactics. These drones are the perfect tactical sacrifice. You send them in first to gather intel, you send a fleet of them and hide manned fighters among them. They are the perfect pawns. You can afford sacrificing them, if it serves the mission, much more easily than you could afford sacrificing the life of a human pilot. An enemy will have to react to them (as they can do significant damage), withdrawing forces from elsewhere, giving your manned fighters a better chance and so on and so forth.

[DeltaV]

Well right now they are too big for small fighter jets. The future may be different.

The future is nearly now. For example, F-35B was designed so that the shaft-driven lift fan could be replaced with a generator that powers directed-energy weapons.

But then, some drones right now are not that much smaller than manned fighters.

Because they need to carry those big satellite dishes and complex, unjammable, encrypted, real-time data links to do anything useful.

They save money however, because of the things needed for supporting and protecting a human life are missing.

You forgot to add the cost of onboard, real-time data link equipment, expensive comm sat channels, ground-based control and uplink/downlink equipment in Nevada, and replacement costs due to their high crash and capture rates.

Drones Most Accident-Prone U.S. Air Force Craft

... Northrop’s Global Hawk and General Atomics’s Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles have had a combined 9.31 accidents for every 100,000 hours of flying. That’s the highest rate of any category of aircraft and more than triple the fleet-wide average of 3.03, according to military data compiled by Bloomberg.

USAF Splashes One Reaper

Operators lost control over the unmanned aircraft during its operation. With the UAV headed in a direction where it was about to depart Afghanistan's air space, a U.S. Air Force aircraft brought down the Reaper in what the Air Force says was a remote part of Afghanistan.

Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident

On 4 December 2011, an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was captured by Iranian forces near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran. The Iranian government announced that the UAV was brought down by its cyberwarfare unit which commandeered the aircraft and safely landed it, after initial reports from Western news sources inaccurately claimed that it had been "shot down". The United States government claims that the UAV malfunctioned and crashed.

Air Force Strategic Choices and Budget Priorities Brief at the Pentagon, January 27, 2012

GEN. SCHWARTZ:
The bottom line on your multiple questions -- let me start first with the rationale. It was our expectation, our -- certainly our hope, that the advantages that a Global Hawk-like platform provides would -- which we anticipated both would be cost of operation, on the one hand, and clearly persistence on the other -- would play out in practice.

The reality is that the Global Hawk system has proven not to be less expensive to operate than the U-2. And in many respects, the Global Hawk Block 30 system is not as capable from a sensor point of view, as is the U-2. And so we have made the choice, as the deputy secretary mentioned yesterday -- cancel the Block 30 program.

Finally, having drones that are as capable (or even almost as capable) as manned fighter jets, means that you can employ completely new tactics.

I have never argued that drones and manned fighters would not be used in combination. I have argued against your assertion that drones can replace manned fighters within a few decades.