How could you put something so beautiful next to something so pig assed ugly?

The most significant effort in aerospace engineering in the next 20 years will be the development of autonomous combat systems.

I'm with you, we are at the end of manned combat platforms. You will even see unmanned naval surface platforms within 20 years.

Because the 5th gens aren’t ever going to be what we thought they were, and some MIT educated Chinese kid may stumble upon a revolutionary way to detect our stealth designs, ala Pyotr Yakovlevich Ufimtsev.

Oh hell, I’m thinking even more autonomous than that.

The best predictor that manned fighters are going to persist is that the guys making that decision are fighter pilots.

His point as well, although I would disagree with the idea that manned aircraft are necessarily more aware. A human being only has one pair of eyes (two in a two-seater), a machine can have many. And an unmanned aircraft can free up tons of things a pilot used to do through automation.

Damn you. I just stopped by to have a quick look and got sucked into 13 open tabs.

Saw this on Twitter, LOVED IT.

Not really, though on another forum the general belief is that the gen 6 fighter is going to be for all intents a hybrid bastard child of the raptor and the tomcat, and have less focus on stealth and more focus on bringing a few thousand pounds of pain.

They can have all the fun they want playing with the model jets in the break room.

Technically, the F-111 was forbidden from doing the ‘dump and burn’ also, according to US regs. That’s why you only see Aussie F-111s doing it.

Terrain would also impact speed of the operation. No wide open desserts to roll columns of tanks and APCs through. Just mountains, jungle, and bottleneck routes. A factor that contributed to the original outcome of the first Korean War.

Oh Kelly.

During the WikiLeaks days one of the diplomatic cables indicated that there is an agreement in place between China, SK, Japan, and the US. In case of a collapse in NK the South Koreans would assume control of the whole peninsula. China would not stand in the way in exchange for a withdrawl of US troops from the Korean…

That's a lot of freedom

All those Dirty Birds on hot standby, unf. That’s just some hellfire sitting there waiting for something.

There is definitely a lethal as hell look to the F16 that’s only increased by its mechanical elegance.

Having Foal Eagle/Team Spirit flashback to my year at the Kun, now. I was shivering in a bunker on the edge of the flight line sucking through a gas mask rather than working on planes. No sleep for three or four days remains the same, though.