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posted by CoolHand on Monday March 11 2019, @01:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the top-gun-will-never-be-the-same dept.

The US Air Force’s jet-powered robotic wingman is like something out of a video game

The US Air Force has successfully tested an advanced, jet-powered drone called the XQ58-A Valkyrie, that could someday accompany human-piloted fighter jets on missions. The concept is a bit like something we’ve seen in video games, a drone (or swarm of drones) can fight alongside a human pilot, or absorb enemy fire in their place.

The vehicle was developed as a partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory and Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems as a relatively cheap platform that can fill a electronic warfare, strike, and surveillance role on the battlefield, controlled by a piloted aircraft on its own or as part of a swarm group. It can carry a small payload of bombs, and can use a conventional runway or can be launched via rocket.

The prototype completed its first test flight (of five planned missions) on March 5th over the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, and the Air Force says that it “behaved as expected” over the course of its 76-minute flight. The battery of test flights that it will go through will look at how well the drone’s systems worked, and how well it takes off, flies and lands.

What’s interesting about this particular plan is that it’s an early demonstration of a concept called “loyal wingman.” While this test saw the drone fly on its own — not alongside the fighter aircraft that it’s designed to accompany in the future — the idea is that it could fly alongside a piloted vehicle, which would control it. From there, it could do everything from provide a bit of extra force projection in the air, fly ahead to scout out terrain, or even taking enemy fire in place of its human-piloted companion.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday March 11 2019, @03:23PM (7 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday March 11 2019, @03:23PM (#812706) Homepage Journal

    Assuming secure, unjammable communications (which is a big ask, but entirely do-able in most circumstances... Assuming that, fighter pilots really should not exist:

    - Air superiority: normally they are using missile and fighting beyond visual range anyway. Nothing you can't do remotely, no advantage to being tied into a cockpit.

    - Putting a cockpit into an aircraft takes a lot of space, adds weight, and the pilot can't take the accelerations that the airframe is capable of anyway.

    - Ground support, by the type of aircraft being discussed, is also done from a safe distance, generally using missiles.

    The exception is close air support by something like the A10. But the USAF doesn't like that kind of mission anyway, because it puts them at the beck-and-call of another service.

    The problem is: most of the USAF generals are ex-fighter jocks. They can't stand the idea that fighter pilots are mostly obsolete. Look at the insane amount of money thrown at the F-35 program: the planes are so expensive that they will never be risked in any sort of close air combat. Maybe they'll fly a few missions over areas where air superiority is already guaranteed, just to give the pilots some combat medals. If they ever get into shooting distance with a real opponent, it will only be by accident.

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday March 11 2019, @04:05PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday March 11 2019, @04:05PM (#812739)

    they will never be risked in any sort of close air combat

    Any what? My understanding is that close air combat has become extremely rare, mostly due to 2 factors:
    1. The US doesn't generally have to go up against other nations that have air forces that pose a serious threat to US aircraft. For instance, in the 2003 Iraq invasion, not a single Iraqi plane actually took off.

    2. There are these things called guided missiles that make air combat more a matter of "press a button at 15 miles away" rather than anything resembling the footage of furballs over World War II battlefields or even the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. And that can be done from the ground at least as well as from a fighter, again because you don't need to be anywhere near the enemy in order to attack them.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 11 2019, @04:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 11 2019, @04:42PM (#812750)

    We couldn't imagine the Great War until it happened, and we thought it was the War To End All Wars, and then later we renamed to to World War I.

    If we fail to prepare for "the unthinkable", then we lose. So, let's make a plan to simultaneously fight most of the world. We could be fighting Russia, or China, or a European Caliphate, or a pair of those as allies. Hopefully they don't all gang up on us, but it is possible.

    So communications are dead. (GPS included) Forget it. An AI might work. If it has a glitch though, that will be fully exploited to wipe it out.

    Today we build 100 planes, but in WWII we would build 10000 planes. Today we are horrified when a pilot dies, but in WWII we'd send people off with a 1-in-3 chance of death for that flight and a probable survival time of a month. One day we will face that kind of situation again, and we will have to recalibrate our ideas of horror and unacceptable loss.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:32AM (#813107)

      If you are preparing for that sort of war, then you are preparing for a general nuclear war. There is no way that the US won't use an all-out nuke strike in that scenario.
      I think that the USA would in fact use nukes in the face of any successful or sustained military invasion of the USA mainland.
      If China or the the Arabs land a million troops in Oregon, they are going to get nuked, and so is every known nuclear launch site or major military concentration. Boomers and mobiles would be held back for a second strike and/or to deter others, but the military that attacked would be glassed.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 11 2019, @06:12PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 11 2019, @06:12PM (#812811)

    Secure, unjammable communications? Sounds like a whonking great EM emitter, and thus a wonderful beacon to missiles designed to home in on such. Unless the drones are controlled by cables instead of wireless of course, and that would play merry hell with drag and maneuverability.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday March 11 2019, @06:24PM

      by bradley13 (3053) on Monday March 11 2019, @06:24PM (#812822) Homepage Journal

      "Secure, unjammable communications? Sounds like a whonking great EM emitter, and thus a wonderful beacon to missiles designed to home in on such. "

      The planes are already radar beacons. They're in constant contact with the ground, other aircraft, their missiles in flight, and much more. On top of that, they have this great, honking radar dish on the front that will cook your lunch for you. Being a radar beacon is a hazard of life, but they also have countermeasures to reduce this danger.

      Spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping, possibly directional communications for remote control? Just a drop in the bucket...

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SpockLogic on Monday March 11 2019, @06:16PM (1 child)

    by SpockLogic (2762) on Monday March 11 2019, @06:16PM (#812815)

    The problem is: most of the USAF generals are ex-fighter jocks.

    No, the problem is most of the generals are fighting the last war not the next one.

    --
    Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:34AM (#813108)

      A good percentage of them are fighting the war before that. Some would like to go back to swords and crossbows on horseback.