"You're just not getting it, are you, lieutenant? EDI is the whole idea..."
Posted on 01/17/2006 4:03:40 PM PST by spetznaz
January 17, 2006: The U.S. Department of Defense has decided to make the next generation heavy bomber an unmanned aircraft. The Department of Defense also wants the new aircraft in service by the end of the next decade, some twenty years ahead of schedule. At the same time, the current combat UAV program (J-UCAS, run by the air force and navy) is to be changed as well. The current X45 project will be split up, with the air force and navy allowed to develop a shorter range combat aircraft to suit their particular needs. These will be bombers, with some air-to-air capabilities. The X45 was meant mainly for those really dangerous bombing missions, early on, when enemy air defenses have to be destroyed. But the Pentagon finally got hip to the fact that the J-UCAS developers were coming up with an aircraft that could replace all current fighter-bombers. This was partly because of the success of the X45 in reaching its development goals, and the real-world success of the Predator (in finding, and attacking, targets) and Global Hawk (in finding stuff after flying half way around the world by itself.)
The X45 program started out, two years ago, as a DARPA research project. But last Fall, it was taken from DARPA and given to the air force, with orders to move as quickly as possible. At that time, the plan was to build the X45C version and get it through all the tests needed to certify it for combat. At the time, it was thought another four years would be needed to do that. Now, no one is sure it will take that long.
The X45A has passed tests with formation flying, and dropping a JDAM (actually the new 250 pound SDB version). The X45C will carry eight SDB (250 pound small diameter bombs), or up to 4500 pounds of other JDAMs. The X45A has already shown it can fly in formation and refuel in the air. The X45C will weigh in at about 19 tons, have a 2.2 ton payload and be 39 feet long (with a 49 foot wingspan.) The X-45A, built for development only, is 27 feet long, has a wingspan of 34 feet and has a payload of 1.2 tons. The X-45C will be able to hit targets 2,300 kilometers away and be used for bombing and reconnaissance missions. Each X-45C will probably cost about $30 million, depending on how extensive, and expensive, its electronic equipment will be.
The one topic no one wants to touch at the moment is air-to-air. This appears to be the last job left for pilots of combat aircraft. The geeks believe they have this one licked, and are giving the pilot generals the, “bring it on” look. The generals are not keen to test their manned aircraft against a UAV, but this will change the minute another country, like China or Russia, demonstrates that they are seriously moving in that direction.
Ping.
BTTT
They could always get Randy "Duke" Cunningham to fly them - - he's not going to be busy soon.
Very interesting.
BUMP!
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Thank you.
"You're just not getting it, are you, lieutenant? EDI is the whole idea..."
Mea culpa .....did not know.
It's exactly what Patton predicted. And? It marks the end of heroics in war.
I want no part of it.
> The one topic no one wants to touch at the moment
> is air-to-air. This appears to be the last job left
> for pilots of combat aircraft.
And will remain so as long as a human brain has to be in
the loop, and the reaction time has no tolerance for the
1/2 second or more ping delay introduced by satcom from
the cockpit in the container to the a/c in theatre.
But sure, 18 hr missions in B2s not originally designed
for sleepovers ...
Ok we'll let you ride onto the battlefield with a fine stallion and sabre and you can be heroic.
Sounds better than pushing a button and trying it.
"Look, we have things those computers can never have, like instincts and feelings and moral judgment. You can call me old-fashioned, you can call it whatever you want, but I just don't think that in war, the action should ever be divorced from the consequences."
Lt Ben Gannon (Josh Lucas), from the 2005 movie Stealth.
The X45A.
The X45C
War is the organized use of force to accomplish national policy goals. It is not a game, it is not a show, and its goal is not to encourage "heroics." If you want the thrill of watching a hero at work, go to the movies or to the stadium. It is not worth sacrificing a single life for your entertainment.
Since you like to quote Patton, I'll offer this: "No one ever won a war by dying for his country." If in the future our enemies can kill themselves by throwing their bodies at our machines, that's fine and dandy with me. They can have their vainglorious "heroism," and we'll have to settle for victory.
It isn't a matter of "entertainment." It's a matter of sacrificing something for the bloody, awful business of war.
War should be awful. It should cost something. It should be paid for in blood. You are the one who wants it to become nothing more than a game.
Patton was right about the future of war. He was right about the mechanized nihilism of the modern age. And, again, you can keep every bit of it.
For all that will remain are the living and the dead, nothing more. And nothing less. Whatever kind of "victory" that represents is the kind of victory I, personally, want no part of.
You can keep it.
Ping for our previous discussion of replacement for B-52s.
I wonder if the guys sitting where ever with the remote controls will be sent to flight school or given pilot wings? I can just see the guy walking out of a computer room at some airbase here in the states wearing his "50 mission crush" hat for the missions he flew his remote bomber on. H'm will these "pilots" receive flight pay? Or even be required to have a college degree, thus seeing a return to the Air Force of the NCO pilot that existed before WW2?
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