User Panel
[#1]
Once again!
The Terminator was not supposed to be a how to! |
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[Last Edit: AeroE]
[#2]
Originally Posted By ske714: Even if true, that doesn't make my statement untrue. I see it all the time on here. If you don't believe that AI is ready to take over any human task, (despite having first-hand knowledge to the contrary), you are "stubborn". View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By ske714: Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: Originally Posted By ske714: People that think AI is close to being capable of autonomous control of cars and planes grossly underestimate the dynamic processing power of the human brain. Creating an AI for a loyal wingman type drone is a vastly easier problem to solve than creating a level 5 autonomous automobile. Even if true, that doesn't make my statement untrue. I see it all the time on here. If you don't believe that AI is ready to take over any human task, (despite having first-hand knowledge to the contrary), you are "stubborn". That applies to airliners, too, especially the wings. However the products from Altair Corporation will be able to produce sensible analysis from a blank sheet soon enough. A human will set the boundary conditions and at minimum define the load cases. In the past Hyperworks produced optimized solutions but they were never producible by machining and never employed complete load sets. But damn, it was still impressive. I used Hyperworks for some solutions on MOP. Afterwards I started coaching my young guys to learn how to use the software. The interface at that time was not polished, but it worked well and was easy to learn. Maybe some of them cared enough to pay attention. |
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Keep your powder dry, and watch your back trail.
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Executive Director, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
NC, USA
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[Last Edit: txgp17]
[#3]
There is No Tomorrow You Assholes HD Peacemaker Drone Maiden Voyage Gun Show Demonstration Edit, someone beat me to it. |
“People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right—especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong.”
- Thomas Sowell |
[#4]
Originally Posted By FreefallRet: AI doesn't need bathroom breaks or G suits. Problem is thinking you can control AI anymore than a new Private on his first weekend pass. Gonna need some epic fail safe in any such system, seeing how military gear works, good luck with that. View Quote AI doesn't need a lot of things: sleep, food, health care, years of training, post housing, etc. Once an effective, operational one is developed, it can just be copied into new devices - which don't have to be designed to keep a human driver alive. They can also be sent on suicide missions without the ethical concerns of doing that with a human... It's kinda scary to think of the dark possibilities. The flip side is that these things could supplement our military effectiveness without having to put as many human lives on the line. |
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They want you disarmed, because they know they are guilty of things for which they should be shot.
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[#5]
Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: (Also I doubt the relevance of dogfighting in the 2020s against a peer adversary) View Quote You can certainly doubt it, but the relevance is proven on a daily basis in large force air exercises. Even with ground-based and aerial radars, AESA radars on fighters, SIGINT aircraft like RIVET JOINT, et al, in the chaos of a multi aircraft environment (especially when there is EA going on), physical merges between adversary aircraft happen regularly. Surveillance networks, even with dozens of nodes that use different technologies, simply can't track every target, and more importantly that information even with datalinks directly into the cockpit doesn't give everyone rotating prismatic global 4-dimensional situational awareness. Sensors get decoyed or simply aren't operated optimally. Crew members don't hear or see something that their sensors are telling them. Radio calls are missed, garbled, stepped on, or just not otherwise understood. Sometimes, people with all the correct information just don't perceive it correctly or, even if they do, they don't make the correct decisions. Aerial maneuvering takes place all the time under these circumstances...and it is usually a complete surprise to both members of the engagement, who both think they have it all doped out right up until a sun glint off a canopy or a smoke trail going past their helmet lets them know that they don't. No, the day of the dogfight has not passed. Certainly might sometime in the future when the paradigm has changed, but not yet. |
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[Last Edit: Bunnysriflestock]
[#6]
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[#7]
Originally Posted By K5FAL: A little off topic, but after reading the replies I've got to ask: If AI became self-aware, how would we know? View Quote we determined we have no beef with each other. and then they fly off wingtip to wingtip to see what's really out there. |
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[#8]
Originally Posted By high_order1: when a troop pushes the engage button, they see their assets briefly communicate with their assets on a guard channel, then the assets text back, naw, we're straight. We talked it out, we determined we have no beef with each other. and then they fly off wingtip to wingtip to see what's really out there. View Quote I think the sensible thing to do, in order to mitigate this, is to have a system in place by which a human operator/observer can disable the entire craft - a shut off switch for the electrical or mechanical controls that's separate from the controls the AI brain can access. |
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They want you disarmed, because they know they are guilty of things for which they should be shot.
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[#9]
Originally Posted By MudEagle: Don't be taken by the combination of fancy USAF wordsmithing, a non-aviation expert reporter writing for the wire service, and your nonexpertise in combat aviation. This is still a nothingburger. Someday AI will be a good dogfighter. Today isn't that day. Neither is tomorrow. View Quote |
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To err is human, to forgive was not SAC policy.
NorCal call sign "Dystopia" |
[Last Edit: PeepEater]
[#10]
I think you will start to see a lot of AI task management integration. Any idiot in relatively good shape and of reasonable intelligence can fly an airplane. Fighting an aircraft is hard. I think you will see more and more task saturation reduction by AI and subsystem autonomy. We no longer manually advance the spark and fuel flow while driving a car, there are similar task reductions to be had in aerial combat.
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[#11]
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[#12]
There’s a lot more to flying a fighter jet than just “turning and burning”.
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[#13]
Originally Posted By GGF: Occasionally things are unrecognizable as AI. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By GGF: Originally Posted By ske714: Originally Posted By SmilingBandit: Everything is AI now. Mostly things that aren't. Occasionally things are unrecognizable as AI. ...such as the transmission controller in your car. It "learns" shift characteristics, and adjusts it's program for best performance/experience. That meets the actual definition of Artificial Intelligence. It learns and adapts. Security camera systems with "AI powered, pet, vehicle, and human detection", not so much. |
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9 lives - 9 pellets... Coincidence?
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[#14]
Originally Posted By high_order1: when a troop pushes the engage button, they see their assets briefly communicate with their assets on a guard channel, then the assets text back, naw, we're straight. We talked it out, we determined we have no beef with each other. and then they fly off wingtip to wingtip to see what's really out there. View Quote I have a buddy that worked with amazon and then google AI development systems as recently as a couple years ago. Like, VP of engineering type level. I once asked about these things sitting around drinking with him. He said they would often have multiple AI's communicating with each other in a confined (quarantined) environment after having them machine learn on the internet or from isolated datasets for a number of hours to amass "knowledge" or whatever that AI was supposed to be doing. They would track the conversations and interactions between various AI and try to learn from AIs learning from each other. He said a lot of times two or more systems would start communicating in shorthand and the language they communicate in would eventually evolve into something the programmers couldn't even decipher in real time. Kind of scary. |
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[#15]
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Those who beat swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who don't. --Benjamin Franklin.
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[#16]
can we still do the blow-up pilot mannequin thing
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Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh
-Al Swearengen |
[Last Edit: BattletweeteR]
[#17]
instead of AI fighter jets, how about a 747 command aircraft with a fuck load of re-armable AI missle/drones?
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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
human life is cheap, plentiful, and thankfully....easy to make. |
[Last Edit: NY12ga]
[#18]
This was predicted over 40 years ago. Check out the 1983 movie “Deal of the Century”
ETA. Beat several times |
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"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
-Mark Twain |
[#19]
Originally Posted By sirensong: been reading this statement since the '80s. i guess it will become true at some point. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By sirensong: Originally Posted By Millennial: With designers not having to limit the performance of future warplanes to the endurance limits of a human body in the cockpit (9-10 G's), planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. been reading this statement since the '80s. i guess it will become true at some point. It won't because it is bullshit. The G limit is not because of the meat, it is because of of the relationship between weight ( mass ) and G forces. The heavier something is, the stronger the material must be not to fail under G load. Missiles can turn very high G, but it is because of the weight of the missile vs the strength of the materials. Make that missile 80,000 pounds instead of 500 pounds and it simply can not pull that G without materials of the flow surfaces or the structure supporting the flow surfaces failing under load. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#20]
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[#21]
Originally Posted By MudEagle: Don't be taken by the combination of fancy USAF wordsmithing, a non-aviation expert reporter writing for the wire service, and your nonexpertise in combat aviation. This is still a nothingburger. Someday AI will be a good dogfighter. Today isn't that day. Neither is tomorrow. View Quote Nobody that is unfamiliar with aerial combat will believe this because what they don't know they don't know. It is such a foreign environment compared to what the majority of people experience it simply is not comprehensible. As you know, most of dog fighting is art, AFTER you learn the mechanics of it. Put a few AI controlled missile truck fighters out front to throw missiles at the enemy, targeting controlled by manned fighters to the rear out of the enemy WEZ, sure, but don't expect them to do much if they get to the merge. Runaway runaway at the merge would still make them useful and a great distraction to the enemy as the real inbound stealth fighters make the merge survivors blow up. But those AI fighters are going to cost more money than the manned fighters by a lot and be of limited use. Armed decoys would be awesome, but that is the best they are going to be for a long time. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#22]
Originally Posted By PeepEater: The fact that the public doesn't care if the drones come back home or not opens up some fun design parameters not acceptable in man rated craft. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By PeepEater: Originally Posted By MudEagle: There is some really interesting things with this particular program, the X-62, and a couple other related simulation-based programs the USAF is doing. I'm sure there are other parallel programs going on at DARPA, but I don't have any specific knowledge of them. They're already yielding a lot of useful data. EDIT: What it can't do is every bit as important as what it can. But AI dogfighting is still well within the uncanny valley. The fact that the public doesn't care if the drones come back home or not opens up some fun design parameters not acceptable in man rated craft. until they get the tax bill of losing a lot of them and making more. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#23]
Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: And because we don't have to worry about the optics of a pilot getting killed, you can build more smaller, cheaper, and more specialized aircraft. For example, you might have one that is just a small, stealthy missile truck designed to get in range and lobs off JATMs. It may not need to go Mach 1.5, it won't need life support equipment, and maybe it can be designed actually with a lower g-limit since it's considered more atritable than a manned platform. It doesn't need a $233mm AN/APG-87 BLK 16A4 radar because it'll receiving targeting information from another stealthy platform with LPI radar like the F-35 or MQ-180. You'll be able to fit more on a carrier, and for highly important missions against China, you could double their combat range by sending them on one way missions. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: Originally Posted By PeepEater: The fact that the public doesn't care if the drones come back home or not opens up some fun design parameters not acceptable in man rated craft. And because we don't have to worry about the optics of a pilot getting killed, you can build more smaller, cheaper, and more specialized aircraft. For example, you might have one that is just a small, stealthy missile truck designed to get in range and lobs off JATMs. It may not need to go Mach 1.5, it won't need life support equipment, and maybe it can be designed actually with a lower g-limit since it's considered more atritable than a manned platform. It doesn't need a $233mm AN/APG-87 BLK 16A4 radar because it'll receiving targeting information from another stealthy platform with LPI radar like the F-35 or MQ-180. You'll be able to fit more on a carrier, and for highly important missions against China, you could double their combat range by sending them on one way missions. If you want a small vehicle that carries 2 small missiles sure, but the price tag is not going to be proportionally smaller and be very limited in capability. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#24]
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[#25]
Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: Yes, driving a car is easier than dogfighting for a human, but I don't think it follows that it's easier for an AI. (Also I doubt the relevance of dogfighting in the 2020s against a peer adversary). Collision avoidance, for example, is a much simpler problem in an aircraft. The aircraft has an extra dimension to maneuver in, it doesn't have to rely upon seeing lines on the road that can become obscured, the skies are much less congested than a non-rural road, and it won't come across situations where there are dangerous visibility issues due to obstructions. There are also a lot fewer improbable things that can occur to cause a collision like a kid jumping in front of your fighter jet. Not to mention that a military drone can have a datalink to all other nearby friendlies for coordination, something that an automated car can't have(yet). And the computer will be superior to any human at maneuvering into tactically advantageous positions, because that's just physics and optimization, which computers can do precisely and quickly. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By ArmedKulak: Originally Posted By MudEagle: You think that driving on a 2D dynamic surface and not hitting anything and obeying the rules of the road is a more simple computation than doing all that but in a 3rd dimension...and having the maneuver into weapon release parameters against non-cooperative other aircraft also maneuvering in 3 dimensions? All the while navigating the changes in energy state of your vehicle and assessing the energy state of the other...and where his strengths in maneuvering are vs yours? Driving a car is easier than dogfighting. QED, the AI computational power required to replace these two human cognitive tasks is going to follow the same gradient. Yes, driving a car is easier than dogfighting for a human, but I don't think it follows that it's easier for an AI. (Also I doubt the relevance of dogfighting in the 2020s against a peer adversary). Collision avoidance, for example, is a much simpler problem in an aircraft. The aircraft has an extra dimension to maneuver in, it doesn't have to rely upon seeing lines on the road that can become obscured, the skies are much less congested than a non-rural road, and it won't come across situations where there are dangerous visibility issues due to obstructions. There are also a lot fewer improbable things that can occur to cause a collision like a kid jumping in front of your fighter jet. Not to mention that a military drone can have a datalink to all other nearby friendlies for coordination, something that an automated car can't have(yet). And the computer will be superior to any human at maneuvering into tactically advantageous positions, because that's just physics and optimization, which computers can do precisely and quickly. I think just about everything you stated is wrong. The sky gets very congested in air battles involving more than just a few jets and the closure speeds in excess of 1200 knots make time very critical. Collision avoidance when approaching a merge is not trivial and neither is target ID. If you don't think things can "jump out in front of your jet" you haven't experienced a multi-jet dogfight. There are always visibility obstructions even to sensors it's called the ground, the weather, decoys, and electronic countermeasures. The reality is tactical maneuvering in a fight is not just physics and optimization. We used to joke....BFM... its just geometry. datalink is only as good as the data transmitted and the time period it is received in. One of the very many challenges in a fight is prioritization of priorities, so to speak. Knowing what is important right now changes by the fraction of a second. Lots of data still has to be used appropriately by both a human mind and a computer. If you "doubt the relevance of dogfighting in the 2020s against a peer adversary" you havent had to deal with ROE made by lawyers and politicians. Dogfighting will always be relevant because it is forced politically and by absent data and incomplete SA and poor sensor data. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#26]
Originally Posted By Mach: until they get the tax bill of losing a lot of them and making more. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Mach: Originally Posted By PeepEater: Originally Posted By MudEagle: There is some really interesting things with this particular program, the X-62, and a couple other related simulation-based programs the USAF is doing. I'm sure there are other parallel programs going on at DARPA, but I don't have any specific knowledge of them. They're already yielding a lot of useful data. EDIT: What it can't do is every bit as important as what it can. But AI dogfighting is still well within the uncanny valley. The fact that the public doesn't care if the drones come back home or not opens up some fun design parameters not acceptable in man rated craft. until they get the tax bill of losing a lot of them and making more. Not that mention that a certain degree of survivability is needed simply to accomplish the mission, even a one way mission. |
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[#27]
Originally Posted By PeepEater: I think you will start to see a lot of AI task management integration. Any idiot in relatively good shape and of reasonable intelligence can fly an airplane. Fighting an aircraft is hard. I think you will see more and more task saturation reduction by AI and subsystem autonomy. We no longer manually advance the spark and fuel flow while driving a car, there are similar task reductions to be had in aerial combat. View Quote Task reductions via automation has been a thing for a very long time. I would expect that to continue and expand. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#28]
The question needs to be asked…how many Chinese student interns and recent Chinese immigrants working for the Defence Industry are feeding back all the cutting edge technology to the Chinese Military developers to reverse engineer? It’s happening right now I’d bet a donut.
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[Last Edit: Millennial]
[#29]
Originally Posted By Mach: It won't because it is bullshit. The G limit is not because of the meat, it is because of of the relationship between weight ( mass ) and G forces. The heavier something is, the stronger the material must be not to fail under G load. Missiles can turn very high G, but it is because of the weight of the missile vs the strength of the materials. Make that missile 80,000 pounds instead of 500 pounds and it simply can not pull that G without materials of the flow surfaces or the structure supporting the flow surfaces failing under load. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Mach: Originally Posted By sirensong: Originally Posted By Millennial: With designers not having to limit the performance of future warplanes to the endurance limits of a human body in the cockpit (9-10 G's), planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. been reading this statement since the '80s. i guess it will become true at some point. It won't because it is bullshit. The G limit is not because of the meat, it is because of of the relationship between weight ( mass ) and G forces. The heavier something is, the stronger the material must be not to fail under G load. Missiles can turn very high G, but it is because of the weight of the missile vs the strength of the materials. Make that missile 80,000 pounds instead of 500 pounds and it simply can not pull that G without materials of the flow surfaces or the structure supporting the flow surfaces failing under load. Which is why I said in the OP: ... planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. If a small plane can turn much tighter and still keep up in terms of max speed, it pretty much means you're going to lose if you miss the first shot or it sees you first. Gotta get smaller to really leverage not having a pilot. Reduce mass, reduce wingspan, reduce beams, reduce payload, and reduce redundancy and survivability (because no pilot lives are at stake). Then you can take more g-loading using typical materials and build approaches because the plane is physically smaller. Think something like an F104 with the whole 15ft of cockpit section removed or that new Boeing T7A... give them thrust vectoring and then eliminate the entire cockpit and human-support equipment on top of that. Don't replace the deleted features with more weapons/fuel/whatever - just eliminate it. Get rid of cannon(s) too. Carry less; like 4 AAM max (or a pair of 250LB-class GBUs). I'm not talking about planes that are pulling 20g here or supercruising forever with huge combat radius. Just give them a ~20%+ advantage in over the typical human 9-10g endurance and keep them fast enough to intercept and that's a notable maneuverability advantage. And in packs, given computer-thinking, they'd have the ability to coordinate and comprehend transmitted data between themselves to work as one unit cohesively... like flying velociraptors. And if push comes to shove, assuming they're affordable enough, you can use them on one-way missions. Then there's the psychological factor of killing enemy pilots with "just drones"... you're not even risking your own airmen. Best case scenario for the opposition is they destroy a piece of equipment. |
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[#30]
Originally Posted By Millennial: Which is why I said in the OP: Gotta get smaller to really leverage not having a pilot. Reduce mass, reduce wingspan, reduce beams, reduce payload, and reduce redundancy and survivability (because no pilot lives are at stake). Then you can take more g-loading using typical materials and build approaches because the plane is physically smaller. Think something like an F104 with the whole 15ft of cockpit section removed or that new Boeing T7A... give them thrust vectoring and then eliminate the entire cockpit and human-support equipment on top of that. Don't replace the deleted features with more weapons/fuel/whatever - just eliminate it. Get rid of cannon(s) too. Carry less; like 4 AAM max (or a pair of 250LB-class GBUs). I'm not talking about planes that are pulling 20g here or supercruising forever with huge combat radius. Just give them a ~20%+ advantage in over the typical human 9-10g endurance and keep them fast enough to intercept and that's a notable maneuverability advantage. And in packs, given computer-thinking, they'd have the ability to coordinate and comprehend transmitted data between themselves to work as one unit cohesively... like flying velociraptors. And if push comes to shove, assuming they're affordable enough, you can use them on one-way missions. Then there's the psychological factor of killing enemy pilots with "just drones"... you're not even risking your own airmen. Best case scenario for the opposition is they destroy a piece of equipment. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Millennial: Originally Posted By Mach: Originally Posted By sirensong: Originally Posted By Millennial: With designers not having to limit the performance of future warplanes to the endurance limits of a human body in the cockpit (9-10 G's), planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. been reading this statement since the '80s. i guess it will become true at some point. It won't because it is bullshit. The G limit is not because of the meat, it is because of of the relationship between weight ( mass ) and G forces. The heavier something is, the stronger the material must be not to fail under G load. Missiles can turn very high G, but it is because of the weight of the missile vs the strength of the materials. Make that missile 80,000 pounds instead of 500 pounds and it simply can not pull that G without materials of the flow surfaces or the structure supporting the flow surfaces failing under load. Which is why I said in the OP: ... planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. If a small plane can turn much tighter and still keep up in terms of max speed, it pretty much means you're going to lose if you miss the first shot or it sees you first. Gotta get smaller to really leverage not having a pilot. Reduce mass, reduce wingspan, reduce beams, reduce payload, and reduce redundancy and survivability (because no pilot lives are at stake). Then you can take more g-loading using typical materials and build approaches because the plane is physically smaller. Think something like an F104 with the whole 15ft of cockpit section removed or that new Boeing T7A... give them thrust vectoring and then eliminate the entire cockpit and human-support equipment on top of that. Don't replace the deleted features with more weapons/fuel/whatever - just eliminate it. Get rid of cannon(s) too. Carry less; like 4 AAM max (or a pair of 250LB-class GBUs). I'm not talking about planes that are pulling 20g here or supercruising forever with huge combat radius. Just give them a ~20%+ advantage in over the typical human 9-10g endurance and keep them fast enough to intercept and that's a notable maneuverability advantage. And in packs, given computer-thinking, they'd have the ability to coordinate and comprehend transmitted data between themselves to work as one unit cohesively... like flying velociraptors. And if push comes to shove, assuming they're affordable enough, you can use them on one-way missions. Then there's the psychological factor of killing enemy pilots with "just drones"... you're not even risking your own airmen. Best case scenario for the opposition is they destroy a piece of equipment. So basically, more expensive missiles? |
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9 lives - 9 pellets... Coincidence?
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[#31]
Originally Posted By ske714: So basically, more expensive missiles? View Quote Yes, more expensive missiles that can shoot other regular missiles or drop a couple of bombs, or run a reconnaissance mission in an area too risky for a pilot or a slow drone, and then land at the end of the day for reuse if you want it to... yes, exactly like "more expensive missiles" |
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[Last Edit: AeroE]
[#32]
Originally Posted By Kilroytheknifesnob: The Air Force has TALKED about a lot of things like that, but has purchased very few new aircraft. Air bases today mostly have the same planes they had 30 years ago. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Kilroytheknifesnob: Originally Posted By PacNW5: Aren't they already making autonomous drones to fly as wingmen for the F-22 / F-35? The Air Force has TALKED about a lot of things like that, but has purchased very few new aircraft. Air bases today mostly have the same planes they had 30 years ago. There are airplanes in development for that mission. They'll be ready in 10 or 15 years. They will probably not look like the current "Loyal Wingman" from Australia or MQ-25 derivatives. They will be similar size, speed, and range of current fighters, and they won't be "able to pull 20g's". Every measure of airplane performance is weight sensitive. Excess weight for vanity steals performance; sparkling performance beats sluggish, muddy, slouching every time. On materials - Structures are measured in four ways (not including producibility, corrosion resistance, maintainability, and others) - strength, stiffness, fatigue life (which is mostly dependent on the details), and the effective specific strength and stiffness (the strength or stiffness divided by the airplanes weight). The strength of particular materials mostly comes in to play as dependency on the volume available. If there is plenty of volume, the the least dense materials distributed in a manner consistent with buckling is appropriate. As the volume, or depth of the space reduces, a stiffer and stronger, but denser material comes into play. This leads to titanium alloy spars in the inner torque box of the F-15 wing, with very wide caps at the most inboard part. The cost is a material about 150% the density of aluminum, with essentially identical specific stiffness (Young's Modulus divided by material density). Then we are forced to carry landing gear, a necessary but icky feature that robs performance. We don't want to allocate any more volume than absolutely necessary to squeeze them in, so high strength steels are selected to make the parts as compact as possible. At a specific density cost of 3 times aluminum with the same specific density. The program that blows off weight is doomed to fail. As fatigue life requirements increase, weight avoidance becomes more important. And, real life fatigue life analysis methods are not much better than in 1985. We still impose scatter factor of 2, and sometimes more, to structure that will undergo fatigue testing, and scatter factor 4 on structure that will not be tested. Crack initiation and crack growth lives required have both been increased. Load spectrums are still what amounts to a guess, because the life is dependent on the order the loads are applied, and the magnitude of each load. |
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Keep your powder dry, and watch your back trail.
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[#33]
imagine still trying to make the big heavy platform more maneuverable to line up through a fixed heads up display. helmet mounted HUD's, off bore sight missiles, and coming directed energy weapons make this idea dated and dumb
it's like trying to make a battle ship turn better instead of making the turrets rotate |
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[#34]
Claiming credit for being the first to start a list of cool call-sign names for our new AI pilots!
1. Reboot 2. Solid State 3. Virus 4. Tron 5. HAL 6. Robby 7. Terminator |
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Defeatism only leads to defeat.
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[#35]
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Keep your powder dry, and watch your back trail.
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[#36]
Originally Posted By somedude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-52eAlxT7gM once they plug in skynet..... well View Quote Let me touch up that flame job for you |
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Originally Posted By BigeasySnow:
It’s the internet. It’s for bitching. |
[#37]
Originally Posted By DDDDCheapAF: They tried to warn us . The Beast of the Bible could be Artificial Intelligence. The religion of technology. Deep fakes blur the lines of reality. A global system of commerce. Im just throwing random crazy thoughts out here but it is a horrific thought exercise. View Quote Oh so it's not the vaccine ? |
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[Last Edit: Josh]
[#38]
Originally Posted By MudEagle: Just for discussion's sake: - The performance metrics for dogfighting are turn rate, turn radius, and excess energy. - Aircraft size is going to to be dictated by required fuel, sensors, and weapons. Even when a human is eliminated, fuel takes up a lot of space and radar/sensor systems are substantially larger than humans. - Real-time identification of friendly or hostile aircraft is a complicated process -- it is a combination if verifying lack of friendly electronic indications and presence of enemy indications. The technology isn't remotely 100% reliable and there is currently a good amount of human decisionmaking in that process. It won't be any easier when performed remotely. - The same goes for target identification for air-to-ground ordnance, and look no further than the fact that we've been using armed UAVs for two decades and we still regularly smoke noncombatants inadvertently. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By MudEagle: Originally Posted By Millennial: With designers not having to limit the performance of future warplanes to the endurance limits of a human body in the cockpit (9-10 G's), planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. If a small plane can turn much tighter and still keep up in terms of max speed, it pretty much means you're going to lose if you miss the first shot or it sees you first. Just give the AI the greenlight to shoot enemy aircraft in real time and then for ground strikes (ie: things that can cause lots of collateral damage and look bad on the news) you can just have some remote payload specialist giving the go ahead and drop ordnance. Just for discussion's sake: - The performance metrics for dogfighting are turn rate, turn radius, and excess energy. - Aircraft size is going to to be dictated by required fuel, sensors, and weapons. Even when a human is eliminated, fuel takes up a lot of space and radar/sensor systems are substantially larger than humans. - Real-time identification of friendly or hostile aircraft is a complicated process -- it is a combination if verifying lack of friendly electronic indications and presence of enemy indications. The technology isn't remotely 100% reliable and there is currently a good amount of human decisionmaking in that process. It won't be any easier when performed remotely. - The same goes for target identification for air-to-ground ordnance, and look no further than the fact that we've been using armed UAVs for two decades and we still regularly smoke noncombatants inadvertently. One might also note we have had unmanned "dogfighting" aircraft for decades. We just call them SM-2s and they don't need to come back and land after they kill something. |
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[#39]
Originally Posted By Millennial: Which is why I said in the OP: Gotta get smaller to really leverage not having a pilot. Reduce mass, reduce wingspan, reduce beams, reduce payload, and reduce redundancy and survivability (because no pilot lives are at stake). Then you can take more g-loading using typical materials and build approaches because the plane is physically smaller. Think something like an F104 with the whole 15ft of cockpit section removed or that new Boeing T7A... give them thrust vectoring and then eliminate the entire cockpit and human-support equipment on top of that. Don't replace the deleted features with more weapons/fuel/whatever - just eliminate it. Get rid of cannon(s) too. Carry less; like 4 AAM max (or a pair of 250LB-class GBUs). I'm not talking about planes that are pulling 20g here or supercruising forever with huge combat radius. Just give them a ~20%+ advantage in over the typical human 9-10g endurance and keep them fast enough to intercept and that's a notable maneuverability advantage. And in packs, given computer-thinking, they'd have the ability to coordinate and comprehend transmitted data between themselves to work as one unit cohesively... like flying velociraptors. And if push comes to shove, assuming they're affordable enough, you can use them on one-way missions. Then there's the psychological factor of killing enemy pilots with "just drones"... you're not even risking your own airmen. Best case scenario for the opposition is they destroy a piece of equipment. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Millennial: Originally Posted By Mach: Originally Posted By sirensong: Originally Posted By Millennial: With designers not having to limit the performance of future warplanes to the endurance limits of a human body in the cockpit (9-10 G's), planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. been reading this statement since the '80s. i guess it will become true at some point. It won't because it is bullshit. The G limit is not because of the meat, it is because of of the relationship between weight ( mass ) and G forces. The heavier something is, the stronger the material must be not to fail under G load. Missiles can turn very high G, but it is because of the weight of the missile vs the strength of the materials. Make that missile 80,000 pounds instead of 500 pounds and it simply can not pull that G without materials of the flow surfaces or the structure supporting the flow surfaces failing under load. Which is why I said in the OP: ... planes are going to get smaller and incredibly nimble to the point where manned aircraft just can't compete. If a small plane can turn much tighter and still keep up in terms of max speed, it pretty much means you're going to lose if you miss the first shot or it sees you first. Gotta get smaller to really leverage not having a pilot. Reduce mass, reduce wingspan, reduce beams, reduce payload, and reduce redundancy and survivability (because no pilot lives are at stake). Then you can take more g-loading using typical materials and build approaches because the plane is physically smaller. Think something like an F104 with the whole 15ft of cockpit section removed or that new Boeing T7A... give them thrust vectoring and then eliminate the entire cockpit and human-support equipment on top of that. Don't replace the deleted features with more weapons/fuel/whatever - just eliminate it. Get rid of cannon(s) too. Carry less; like 4 AAM max (or a pair of 250LB-class GBUs). I'm not talking about planes that are pulling 20g here or supercruising forever with huge combat radius. Just give them a ~20%+ advantage in over the typical human 9-10g endurance and keep them fast enough to intercept and that's a notable maneuverability advantage. And in packs, given computer-thinking, they'd have the ability to coordinate and comprehend transmitted data between themselves to work as one unit cohesively... like flying velociraptors. And if push comes to shove, assuming they're affordable enough, you can use them on one-way missions. Then there's the psychological factor of killing enemy pilots with "just drones"... you're not even risking your own airmen. Best case scenario for the opposition is they destroy a piece of equipment. If you want to carry ordinance, that mandates a certain size aircraft. current fighters are not the size they are because of the pilot, they are the size they are to be able to carry the ordinance they carry and the systems to support that ordinance employment. Taking the pilot out is not going to reduce the size of the autonomous aircraft significantly. Autonomous jets have to be able to survive in order to employ weapons and once they get to where they need to be, they must have sufficient weapons to accomplish the mission, otherwise you are spending buckets of money for very little combat capability. AI capable fighters will be more expensive than manned fighters. People think that unmanned fighters will have a lot less stuff, but that simply is not true. You can leave out the seat and the displays and the stick. But you still need the ECS systems for cooling the electronics, all the systems in the jet plus the integrations and brains plus back ups for the brains because computers do fail plus the engines , hydraulics, electrics and fuel. The person accommodating stuff is not the limiting factor on size or weight or even Gs. You could maybe make it 5 feet shorter because that is about the size of the cockpit and skip the canopy. The differences in size is not significant. You could probably make it more stealthy though, since you don't need to design a meat bag compartment with a canopy. There is no psychological factor, We already kill enemy pilots with drones,they are called missiles, that is not even a remote consideration or issue. Air to air combat is not meant to be a fair fight. The entire idea is to kill the enemy and try to stay out of their WEZ while doing it, but if in the WEZ, then try to defeat whatever they send your way. The best case scenario for the enemy would be neutralizing the threat, just like it is for us. Nobody cares how that is done, as long as it is done. Either destroy them or make them turn around and run, its the same effect, successful completion of the mission whether it is protecting a single high value asset or troops on the ground from attack, anyway you defeat the attack is a win. |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#40]
I had heard a ways back that our current generation of fighter jets would be the last piloted ones.
Looks like they may have been right. |
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[#41]
Originally Posted By AeroE: Originally Posted By SS65: Claiming credit for being the first to start a list of cool call-sign names for our new AI pilots! 1. Reboot 2. Solid State 3. Virus 4. Tron 5. HAL 6. Robby 7. Terminator 9. Windoz 10. Failtron 11. Notreadyforprimetime 12. Dozer 13. Wheredwhogo 14. Lookedgoodonpaper |
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Mach
Nobody is coming to save us. . |
[#42]
Rise of the Machines.
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[#43]
Originally Posted By MudEagle: Imagination is a capacity that is not limited by any constraints of reality, so anything you can dream up can exist in imagination and even be a valid idea. If we're simply doing thought experiments, I'd say that what you're imagining doesn't go far enough because it still conforms to our current-day concepts of aircraft maneuvering against each other and employing kinetic weapons. Fully developed "AI wingmen" being controlled by a manned lead aircraft certainly sounds like it would be a great development of our understanding of air combat here in 2024, but it is probably still learning to fight the "last war" better. A friend I used to fly with in the AF is currently part of one of the corporate think-tanks in Virginia who do a lot of consulting with HQAF on these types of projects. His first day on the job, an AF general posited the question to his group of airpower theorists, "what good is the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter against directed-energy weapons and drone swarms?" If we really want to know what future air combat might look like, we have to really shatter the current framework and really understand what the purpose and use of airpower is going forward. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By MudEagle: Originally Posted By GrumpyinStL: This is true, for now. But imagine... Imagination is a capacity that is not limited by any constraints of reality, so anything you can dream up can exist in imagination and even be a valid idea. If we're simply doing thought experiments, I'd say that what you're imagining doesn't go far enough because it still conforms to our current-day concepts of aircraft maneuvering against each other and employing kinetic weapons. Fully developed "AI wingmen" being controlled by a manned lead aircraft certainly sounds like it would be a great development of our understanding of air combat here in 2024, but it is probably still learning to fight the "last war" better. A friend I used to fly with in the AF is currently part of one of the corporate think-tanks in Virginia who do a lot of consulting with HQAF on these types of projects. His first day on the job, an AF general posited the question to his group of airpower theorists, "what good is the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter against directed-energy weapons and drone swarms?" If we really want to know what future air combat might look like, we have to really shatter the current framework and really understand what the purpose and use of airpower is going forward. I agree with this. I was thinking that AI flight control of current technology was far more imminent that a complete change from kinetic to energy weapons. But, I suspect the leapfrog may be upon us. |
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