[mbynack]

I don't know how many times I've got to repeat this before it gets through your skull....the UAV's WILL BE PILOTED.

Maybe you don't read so well. Even a piloted UAV has to have some kind of contingency program to allow it to operate autonomously if the communications are lost. I understand how UAVs work. As I said - I am on an engineering team doing test and evaluation on unmanned vehicles. I'm sure I know a lot more about them than you do and I know what the current level of development is on them. I'm also very familiar with the Air-to-Air mission because I'm an engineer and was the Superintendent of the F-15C Schoolhouse at Tyndall AFB before I retired from the AF. That's the only schoolhouse that was dedicated to teaching the Air Superiority Mission in the US.

One of the common failures that I see is a due to a loss of communication with the vehicle. The software has to take hundreds of variables into account and react quickly. The data is fed from sensors all over the vehicle and those sensors sometimes fail, so the program takes action based on faulty data. We've lost very expensive equipment because an attitude sensor failed and said the vehicle was descending when it was supposed to be going straight and level and it commanded a corrective action that caused it to broach and break loose.

Your comment about "Fighter Jocks blocking UAVs" displays your ignorance. The "Fighter Jocks" are the only ones who have a frame of reference on the requirements for Air to Air because they've actually done it. Everyone else is just guessing. You're discounting the opinions of the most experienced people on the subject because you read something on the Internet and formed an ignorant opinion. Ninety percent of the F-15 pilots that I knew had engineering degrees. I worked with one guy who graduated number one from the AF Academy - Number one from undergraduate pilot training, and had Aeronautical Engineering and a Computer Science Degrees. He had several thousand hours of seat time in half a dozen different fighter jets and was the number one graduate from Fighter Weapons School (the AF Equivalent of Top Gun). That's the caliber of person who made the decision that the current state of technology in UAVs isn't up to the Air Superiority mission.

[spetznaz]

Thank you sir. It is always appreciated when someone who is actually plugged in responds. There is a camp on FR that adheres to the belief that all that is needed to achieve and assert air control are UAVs and A-10s. While they are wonderful airframes in low-intensity conflicts against non-technological foes, they are woefully vulnerable in high-intensity conflagrations against near-peer foes. Now, there are some on FR that seem to presume all future conflicts will be against Kalashnikov totting Jihadis, but the fact remains that there always the risk of a real fight against an intelligent, aggressive and technologically adept foe - in other words, a capable opponent.

One day we will face a foe that doesn't bow to Allah and grow dirty beards on their unwashed faces.