F-16 Drone

[BangkokDean]

F-16 DRONE
Not a good day for the future of manned aircraft. The pilot is on the endangered list it seems. This little 4 minute Boeing video is really something.... a first for a full size jet airplane. Thousands of planes that were grave yard bound, with costs in the hundreds of millions, now can be used as never before. These F-16 aircraft have been in the bone yard at Davis-Monthan for 15 years and are now being used as drones!
Scary Robotics ......think of all the other possibilities !
VIDEO: F-16 DRONE

http://video.boeing.com/services/pl...HYj2MSytJiEK9s5fy&bclid=0&bctid=2684464741001

 

[mrvette]

Back in the early 80's I met a neighbor because our daughters were same age, and we shared same baby sitter....so we became friends, with many similar hobbies, cars among them.....

So I asked him what he did, he worked with remote control model aircraft'.....for the Navy located in Crystal City NOVA.....then Xfered over to So. Md...Pax river.....so what he was working on is todays DRONES.....back then it was like a TS clearance project, even though I had my own TS clearance, he would just say 'I play with toy planes'.......and smile....

I wonder if he still has that Napoleonic Bronze Cannon, a REAL one, complete with papers and markings....liberated from France/Europe way before the laws were in place.....:lol::smash:

 

[mfain]

Not really new. I spent 30 years as a USAF fighter pilot flying F-4s, F-5s, and F-15s. In the 70s I shot down 2 F-106 drones, and in the 80s and 90s, several F-100s and an F-4 during training, missile tests, and the William Tell air-to-air competition. The F-16 is a follow-on to the F-4 drones that are almost depleted. The real threats to manned aircraft are the current, successful efforts by the USN on their carrier-based, unmanned close air support aircraft. They have already started tests on unmanned, autonomous carrier landings. They have done vertical landings with an unmanned AV-8 Harrier, and I saw a video of unmanned (safety pilot - not on the controls) F-18 doing autonomous air-to-air refueling. I'm glad I had my shot at pulling 9 Gs from the cockpit rather than from a control console!

 

[phantomjock]

... I'm glad I had my shot at pulling 9 Gs from the cockpit rather than from a control console!

Ditto - although on my return to AD I did get to work a Predator (on a demo-not live/tasked mission) as a SO (Sensor Operator). Interesting, challenging, and with its own set of skills, as it is complicated task working a target in a 3D "fight" -- with the built in time delay of distance.

The remote aspects of the drone come with its own set of consequences.
As General Lee said, “It is well that war is so terrible–we would grow too fond of it!” Clearly, drones make it too easy to employ forces (except for the psychological impacts on the crews). So easy in fact, our peace-prize winning President seems fond of using drones, even as he systematically dismantles the military.

Unfortunately, what he doesn't understand is what General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war."

1 Firebee at Clark AB AIM-9J; 1 @ Tyndall AFB AIM-7E-3