They are pilotless. Ok. That is one job that has been removed from the equation, but take a look at any airforce base. Not everyone is a pilot. The vast majority of personnel are not pilots. These things will still need the engine techs, the avionics people, the ground crew, fuel people, air traffic controllers, all the way down to the guy driving the mule. The net change in manning between an "autonomous" drone and an oldschool drone driven by a pilot in a trailer will be minimal.
And many old fighter jets retire as target drones, going on to fly unmanned for perhaps decades. New purpose-build designs might have lower operating costs but their purchase price will always be higher than slapping radio controls onto already-purchased jets.
> The net change in manning between an "autonomous" drone and an oldschool drone driven by a pilot in a trailer is minimal.
Well the whole point is not to reduce headcount totally but reduce the amount of people put directly in harms way, for example a pilot flying in a direct combat scenario.
An "unmanned" drone still has a pilot. That pilot is on the ground, flying the drone remotely. An "autonomous" drone is one that has no pilot anywhere. In neither case is anyone in harm's way.
Why do you think anyone else thinks that eliminating the job is the valuable thing bere? I have always heard the benefits to be things like less risk to life (vs piloted), quicker reaction (vs piloted and remote), can’t be jammed (vs remote). Literally never heard anyone mentioned salary saved ever, and indeed everyone expects it to be more expensive.
When it comes to fighter pilots, salary is irrelevant. The few pennies paid in salary is absolutely nothing compared to the millions of dollars a year it takes to train and maintain an active combat pilot. Those costs are at the center of nearly every discussion re military drone tech. An autonomous pilot, a computer program, doesn't need check rides. It doesn't need to re-qual its AAR ticket every month. And it doesn't retire or get promoted out after five years.
You’re not responding to my question. You’re listing reasons the elimination of the job valuable, which partially undermines your original comment (because some of these reasons do not apply to drone pilots) but does not answer why you think other people consider the eliminated job to be the key benefit.
Like is any of this mentioned in the article or this comment section? Or are you just complaining about bad arguments you heard elsewhere?
Getting the pilots out of the aircraft reduces the number of people killed in action, which has a significant effect on a war's support and popularity.
downing a drone doesn't require the kind of response that killing a pilot does. It's easier to deescalate from a bunch of drones being shot down vs coffins coming home to families.
A lot of the support staff on those airbases exist to support training flights by human pilots (both in the cockpit and remote). If training flight hours can be cut then that will tremendously reduce ground personnel requirements. The autonomous flight software only has to be "trained" once; new copies don't have to spend years in the pilot training pipeline.
(I am aware that current autonomous piloting technology is very limited and can only accomplish a small subset of Air Force missions.)
I don't know why people keep bringing that up. It's hardly relevant. Extreme maneuvers at high G forces are mostly only useful in very limited circumstances for evading a missile in the terminal phase of an engagement. In the real world it's far less important than low observability, data links, sensor fusion, EW, decoys, fuel fraction, and stand-off range.
Building an airframe strong enough to handle G forces beyond what a human can endure also comes at the price of greater weight and reduced range. It's not worth the trade-off.
I'd say it's a huge change. Yes, it still needs all the same support personnel, or maybe even more. However, those drones that are controlled from a container suffer huge latency that make them useless for most air combat.
Those aren't meant to fly high and send missiles at weddings on the ground, those are maneuverable wingmen for F-35s.
And many old fighter jets retire as target drones, going on to fly unmanned for perhaps decades. New purpose-build designs might have lower operating costs but their purchase price will always be higher than slapping radio controls onto already-purchased jets.