Here's the Taranis, http://www.baesystems.com/Sites/Taranis/index.htm , unveiled this week, is it the end of the piloted fighters? well it looks mean anyway!

Sure looks that way..

i'd agree. i know the major defense contractors have been working in that direction. i would be curious as to the performance specs if they were ever released. what could a new generation aircraft do without the limits of a human stuffed inside..

As I've said before, I doubt that this is the end of piloted fighters. The computer system that can execute the necessary BFMs in response to a dynamically changing situation with an adaptive foe (i.e., a human being) has yet to be invented - *much less* stuffed into an aircraft and made reliable...

Smart ordinance delivery is one thing, but air-to-air combat for air superiority will be human-centric for quite some time yet...

Bob

The question is how a human piloted (in ground or not) may face a simple flying algoritm able to control simultaneously a bunch of UCAV´s .... the pacman (human pilot) will be always eaten sooner or later!

It's happening right now. Look at the USAF, SecDef is parking F-15s/16s by the hundreds, canceled the F-22 and discussing parking all remaining F-15s. We continue to buy Predators by the boat load and think that all wars will be fought against a low tech enemy. Lets go shoot a Hellfire at a pickup truck full of Taliban, $200K missile at a $500 truck.....it isn't going to work against a real enemy, we'll run out of Hellfires and Predators too. Stupid idea in my respect but that's DC...full of idiots. The Russians and Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank. Remember the Mig v Predator video on youtube a couple of years ago. The Predator watched it's own demise via camera. We may never fight the Russians or Chinese but I guarantee our kids will be fighting their equipment...and with Washington's current thinking, we will lose a lot of good young warriors while the politicians drink scotch, eat steaks and beg for campaign money. I recently heard a story that some geek determined the last fighter pilot has already been born and about half of each AF pilot training class is getting a UAV assignment. Yes, the manned aircraft is a dinosaur, especially the fighter.

What about war robots at the border of South Korea?

rhklenke,there are soldier operated UAV.Like there is many experienced fighter pilots,there can by many experienced fighter pilots with transmitter in hands instead of joystick in a cockpit.

PS:Sorry for my bad English,I am from Croatia.

Yes, but for ground-operated UAV's, the link between the pilot and the UAV is *very* fragile and would easily be rendered inoperative in a real shooting air-to-air war. In addition, the current air-to-ground links can't handle enough information to give a ground-based pilot the SA he needs to defeat a manned air threat - ever see a UAV ground station that gives the ground pilot the same visual picture that a pilot in a F-15 or F-22 has? No, right now its a simple soda-straw view that either is locked straight ahead or can pan slowly at best...

I can't argue with tp777fo's contention that politically that is the way things are going, but I am confident that any military with only UAV's and no manned fighters to gain air-superiority (which is a *must* for UAV's to operate) is going to loose the air war for the next 10 years at least, if not 20 years or more...

As I said, the UAV/computer system that can defeat a manned F-22 is only a pipe dream right now - and will be for quite some time.

Bob

Agree.

You are not going to win the ground war unless you control the sky! Our politicians, and many of our 4 Stars dont understand this. They dont because we have always controlled the sky and have never seen what happens when you dont. Remember the "Highway of Death", we will be on the receiving end if we dont maintain air supremacy,