New Navy drone to be tested on aircraft carrier.

[MillCreek]

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-navy-x47b-drone-20121127,0,984165.story

Amazing.  An unmanned and unpiloted drone that can land on an aircraft carrier.  It is going to test automated landings, takeoffs and refuelings.  I seriously wonder if I will see the demise of manned combat aircraft in my lifetime.

[MechAg94]

Not sure about the demise of manned piloting, but what if they were able to automate the landing part on manned fighters and came out with fewer accidents. 

[Boomhauer]

Not sure about the demise of manned piloting, but what if they were able to automate the landing part on manned fighters and came out with fewer accidents.

They already have autoland systems on carrier aircraft.

[280plus]

I know the new DDG-112 touts unmanned drone capability. I'm not sure how they capture it though.

[kgbsquirrel]

Cool stuff. I wonder how wave offs will work? Still have a pilot down on the flight deck using his mark 1 eyeball and if he pulls the wave off trigger the drone will automatically go into wave off routine?

I was also curious just how much interaction remote pilots will have with the UAV's of the future, if they will be manually piloting the fighters/bombers or if complex air combat programming will handle it all. Undoubtedly with the right 360 sensor suite the on board computer will have far more situational awareness than a human pilot and be able to decide how best to outmaneuver an incoming missile far faster, not to mention be able to perform more extreme maneuvers that would kill a human (sustained 12g turn to evade a missile anyone?)

[Fly320s]

And 12g negative, too. 

[T.O.M.]

I wonder if it will be an issue of capability or morality.  Surely, comuter hardware and software is fast approaching a point where the machine is capable of doing what a human pilot can do, and in many ways better than a human can.  But, when you're talking about arming a computer, essentially, and allowing it to decide when to pull the trigger, if human kind ready to turn moral decisions over to a machine?  Turn the rules of engagement into an algarythm?  It's one thing to have a drone operated remotely, but something else entirely to essentially click an icon and watch the video feed.

[Hawkmoon]

I was also curious just how much interaction remote pilots will have with the UAV's of the future, if they will be manually piloting the fighters/bombers or if complex air combat programming will handle it all. Undoubtedly with the right 360 sensor suite the on board computer will have far more situational awareness than a human pilot and be able to decide how best to outmaneuver an incoming missile far faster, not to mention be able to perform more extreme maneuvers that would kill a human (sustained 12g turn to evade a missile anyone?)

Dale Brown wrote a couple of novels about this several years ago. Don't recall the titles, unfortunately.

[ArfinGreebly]

SkyNet reaches another milestone.

[kgbsquirrel]

I wonder if it will be an issue of capability or morality.  Surely, comuter hardware and software is fast approaching a point where the machine is capable of doing what a human pilot can do, and in many ways better than a human can.  But, when you're talking about arming a computer, essentially, and allowing it to decide when to pull the trigger, if human kind ready to turn moral decisions over to a machine?  Turn the rules of engagement into an algarythm?  It's one thing to have a drone operated remotely, but something else entirely to essentially click an icon and watch the video feed.

I don't think we're anywhere close to letting the drones pick and engage targets autonomously. Auto-evade incoming fire or fly to a waypoint and enter a holding pattern where the computer handles all the flight control inputs? Sure. But they wont actively shoot anything unless a human operator tells it to. Bomb these coordinates. Fire a missile at this laser point. Engage this aircraft or RF emission point. You can automate a lot of stuff to take the burden off the human operator, but I don't see us being removed decision loop regarding when to start attacking things.

[ArfinGreebly]

I don't think we're anywhere close to letting the drones pick and engage targets autonomously. Auto-evade incoming fire or fly to a waypoint and enter a holding pattern where the computer handles all the flight control inputs? Sure. But they wont actively shoot anything unless a human operator tells it to. Bomb these coordinates. Fire a missile at this laser point. Engage this aircraft or RF emission point. You can automate a lot of stuff to take the burden off the human operator, but I don't see us being removed decision loop regarding when to start attacking things.

Fear not.  SkyNet will handle all that difficult "decision making" stuff.

[Fitz]

there's a helicopter too