I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The day is RAPIDLY approaching where we will look at manned military aircraft the way the military viewed the Sopwith Camel by WWII. One can merely spend a bit of time meditating on the possibilites and new uses/options/strategies that such technology brings to bear. And the tactics/strategies will only evolve more and more sophisication that nobody has even fully imagined yet.
It is akin to the changes in Football when the forward pass came to widespread use. Only much more so.
I could not agree more. The pilot is adding less and less value in the cockpit while he is a HUGE liability. Electronic systems can "see" much better than he can. If he is shooting at things he only sees on a screen, he can be somewhere else looking at that same data on a different screen.
A crew of pilots punching clocks in Ohio somewhere is FAR less demanding than having the same crew in the cockpit over enemy territory.
Without a pilot in the plane, we could load them up with a cannister of radioactive waste. "Shoot it down if you want to. We don't mind!"