"Janes" is just reporting this story today even though Obama's social engineering yes man Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus (Lib. D) publically made the statement a couple of months ago. When I first heard Mabus say that the F-35 would be the last manned fighter to be purchased by the Navy and Marine Corps I just said this PC yes man will be walking the plank when Obama is gone and the DoD will be depoliticized and the incompetent civilian leadership will be replaced with those who live in reality. The current administration who sends American troops into combat with Rules of Engagement that favor the enemy and cause American troops to bleed and die on the battlefield. Obama's first Sec. of the Air Force was nominated only because he was openly gay and Valerie Jarrett wanted drag queens on Air Force bases by 2012. Obama's current Sec. of the Air Force is a woman who during Senate confirmations hearings seem not to know what an A-10 Warthog was. Obama's Undersecretary of the Navy while visiting San Diego naval bases sees a amphibious LHD ship (Marine Corps Taxi) and asked if it was the Nimitz nuclear class aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan ? These are Obama's "yes men," liberal social engineering civilians who are running our military today. Ray Mabus, who just a few months ago said he wants 1/4 of the Marine Corps to be made up with women, I (*)(*)(*)(*) you not. Liberal social engineering of the military in the name of political correctness and diversity. -> http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/05/26/diversifying-the-marine-corps/27606749/ But I digress, back to the arm chair generals and geeks who have never served who think that it will be UAV's and robots fighting our war in the future. The same type of people who said the B-52, B-1 bombers and the A-10 Warthogs were obsolete in 1989 and were "Cold War" relics. The same type of liberals who back in 1947, 1977, 1995, 2009 who said that the U.S. Marine Corps was obsolete.
They bring too many advantages to ignore. The programming of flight is easy (in relative terms) so its not a question of if they will work, but how should they be allowed to work. For example, I think 'fully' automated combat drones is stupid. So for me the only question is to what extent human control is used, and what extent it is required to be used.... and I think this is double faceted, one being legal and moral standing and the other limitations on information security with communicating with the Fast UCAV's. The best approach IMO would be to have a manned controller platform, basically a USMC SCAR platform with integrated EW functions but instead of managing CAS stacks it controls the drones - not directly as in fly, but as in tasking modes and zones of operations and authorizing engagements.... letting the F-UCAS do its work within those approved/directed parameters. This means a set swarm of F-UCAS tasked to a pair of EW-SCAR jets could operate in depth.... but for low tempo you could have an AWAC managing several sets of F-UCAS swarms. The F35 might be able to do it on its own, as better instrumentation and keeping it out of the fight might mean the F35 pilot can manage the F-UCAS control quite easily since its only limited parameters being worked on with the F-UCAS doing the rest of the work. Otherwise it depends on infosec for the comms with the UCAV's which determines where the human in the loop can be. If its all secure, infinitely redundant, bet your life on it secure (lol yea right), then you might as well just have the JTAC on the ground controlling CAS swarms, and passing it off to SOF for strike, or remotely located controllers using some other real time orbital asset for target authorization.
Funny enough... In the late 50's Britain put out a paper saying that their BAC Lightning interceptor was supposedly the last manned interceptor to be used... Now you're saying the same thing for the F-35 Lightning II! I guess we'll see in 60 years how that went.
This would mean that a long time a go in a galaxy far, far away ... Jedi Knights and friends had computers which didn't work properly [considering the supposed level of advanced technology of Star Wars] and they steel needed pilots for their space fighters ...
After the massive cost overruns and price per aircraft of the F-35, it may well be the last manned fighter we buy. We won't be able to afford any more. And frankly, we probably shouldn't get any more until we fix the military procurement system that allowed this overpriced, underperforming aircraft to suck up every aviation dollar in the DoD budget.
I think the F-35 could be the last "conventional" jet fighter ever build by the US. As they move to unmanned fighters, scram jets and space based weapons centers. However other less technologically capable nations around the world will still build "conventional" jets for their own proposes. Nations like Kenya, Argentina, India will find it useful to be the only powers in their region able to build such aircraft. However the greater powers or those allied to the US directly like Japan, Turkey, Mexico, UK, Poland will move on so better things to keep pace with each other.
The problem wasn't military procurement. The problem was dictates by Congress. In reality, there should probably be at least three completely different aircraft purchased for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.
I don't think so. Remember, it was not all that long ago that General LeMay claimed that future wars would not involve Infantry, and that Bombers and later Missiles would win our wars without putting "troops on the ground". And needless to say, that did not come true either. As of this time, there are absolutely no drones that can "dogfight" and shoot down more conventional fighters. So none are able to engage air targets. And their abilities against even ground targets is limited at best, nowhere near to what manned aircraft can do. As much as the technology wonks would have us believe that drones are the 'wave of the future", I think it is a limited ability at best, and I think ultimately will be regulated to the curiosity area of future warfare. Like RATO and JATO and many other concepts that sounded awesome at the time, but ultimately were never really more then curiosities. As an FYI, nowhere in Star Wars were they said to be "Laser Weapons". They were "Particle weapons" (as in the Blaster), or an energy weapon delivered through a more conventional means (Proton Torpedo, similar to the Photon Torpedo of Star Trek). Yes, and no. For the Air Force, yes. They need aircraft for convenional airstrip operarions. The Marines and Navy have a huge amount of overlap. Marine Fighters typically operate off of carriers, just like the Navy does. Marine pilots are trained in shipboard operations (fixed wing and helo), just as their Navy counterparts are. The only difference is their need for VSTOL aircraft, which is actually only a small number of aircraft in their air forces. Now granted, this is going to be a little upside-down in the F-35, since they need to replace all of the AV8 aircraft, and will be using the F-18 for a couple more decades at least (just as the Navy will). And also the role of the Marines on carriers has been decreasing over the last few decades. But this may also be temporary, and in 10 more years we may see the marines taking more and more carrier roles, so that can not be relied upon. The current plan is for the Navy to buy 260 F-35Cs, and the Marines to buy 80 F-35Cs. So obviously the Marines are not giving up their carrier based operations. But they are also buying 340 F-35Bs, more then enough to retire the last of the Harriers by 2025.
Well, IIRC there have been at least a couple of instances prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq where U.S. drones did engage conventional Iraqi fighters. I remember one incident where a drone fired an air to air missile at a Mig-25 Foxbat. Didn't hit it of course as a Foxbat can be difficult to hit with a single missile if it turns and runs.
I am aware of that incident, but did not consider it for many reasons. Not the least of which is that the Predator was never designed for air combat in the first place. They simply mounted some Stinger missiles on a couple and literally sent them out as "bait" because Saddam liked to order his aircraft to go after them. Plus, in the engagement the AIM-92 missiles fired by the Predator both missed. The missiles fired by the MiG-25 did not miss and the drone was destroyed.
Sounds like air to air combat to me. Too bad the Stingers missed but you don't always end up toting the best weapons into a battle.
And an A6M5 being aimed at a ship sounds like a "guided missile" as well, but most would reject that definition.
