Here is a significantly revised writing from a combat pilot with a 1000+ combat hours on the UAV discussion you guys might find interesting.

I am of the opinion that UAVs (both existing and capable of existing within months using today's technology and sufficient motivation among lawmakes and the defense industry) can provide the ISR that our warfighters in the DoD (and especially the SecDef) are demanding while simultaneously giving us an advantage beyond the F-22 and F-35 in terms of air supremacy and global strike.  I also think it can be done cheaper and cost the taxpayers a great deal less money than our fleet costs us today both to purchase and to maintain.  I also think it can be done relatively quickly if we can loosen the power grip of the culture of pilots running the Air Force and make the case to Congress.

So before I try to explain why I think why I do let me admit up front that I’m not a fighter pilot.  Let me also say I have nothing against them and I think they do great things in certain roles and they certainly provide support I need to do my mission (much of the time).  I also think they possess a great deal of flying skill required by the nature of their jobs.  Unfortunately, however, they have limitations that play greatly in this discussion.  I can't say what airframe I emply but I can say I have integrated air and ground effects hundreds of times with other aircraft including F-16s, F-15Es, F-18s, A-10s (once), EA-6Bs, AV-8s, Apaches and Predators.  Most of the time, however, my integration experience is characterized by F-16s or F-15Es in the air stack well above me over an operation where the integration is on the radio and is characterized by radio communications and the passing of information and building of SA.  This is key to backing up my claims.  I have literally hundreds of hours in combat evaluating and building the SA of fighter aircraft.  My experience leads me to conclude that single seat fighters have very low SA over the objective and provide little unless ordnance is required on a static set of coordinates.  My experience with two seater F-15Es has been a little better but not significantly.  I can’t offer much about my A-10 experience.  What’s my point?  My point is that single seat aircraft moving fast and flying in formation bring limited capability to a fluid ground environment.  It takes a great deal of skill to bring that limited capability but in the end it’s still limited.  When they would check into an air stack over an operation and contact the ground party asking for a situation update I often found myself wishing the ground party would tell them to just be quiet and wait to be called.  The time they spent trying to develop the picture of what was going on took up a fair amount of time and radio chatter and once the situation changed (hostiles moving in various directions) they generally would lose it quickly. 

There will be no single seat UAVs.  Each UAV will come with a host of analysts, sensor operators, and at least one weaponeer.  The self induced panic and adrenaline producing fear that comes from unseasoned pilots imagining they are threatened will not be a factor although the trigger happy neophyte will still have to be guarded against (and will be with more oversight).  I’ll talk more about the Blackhawk shoot down that occurred when two supersonic F-15Cs engaged a slow moving flight of helicopters later but I do want to bring up the killing of the Canadians by the F-16 pilots at Tarnak Farms because it painfully illustrates just what a limitation the pilot can be.  In this situation they saw small arms fire 20,000 feet below them in an established ground fire practice range in friendly territory.  They claimed the fog of war feeling of being threatened made them attack.  As a reference, an AK-47 small arms machine gun (according to Wiki), has an effective range somewhere around 400 meters.  The level of incompetence here is hard to translate to somebody without air sense that isn’t used to being shot at and seeing ground fire.  It sounds “reasonable” to people that don’t know any better but to those with an idea the situation is staggering.  I would liken it to an armored police officer that uses deadly force because he feels threatened by a four year old with a butter knife.  Imagine instead of two pilots flying at 300+ knots you instead have a crew of people sitting in Vegas analyzing all the sensory data.  The only thing they’re scared of is shooting the wrong people for the wrong reason.  They can’t use the “self defense” excuse for incompetence or a masked trigger happy desire to be the first kid on their block to get a confirmed kill.  The self defense rationale should be emphasized as it’s important.  One might wonder why there aren’t lots more examples of fratricide by single seat aircraft if the SA of the single seat pilot is as limited as I make it out to be.  The reason there aren’t more is because of release authority rules.  Fighter/bomber aircraft ordnance employment is controlled by somebody on the ground that provides coordinates (generally) and other information to ensure the right target is hit.  More importantly the pilot must get permission from that ground controller to release weapons.  As such, the decision making of the single seat pilot is greatly reduced with target selection in most cases.  They simply punch in coordinates, pickle, and the GPS does the rest in most modern cases.  Where these sad stories arise is during exceptions to that control where the pilot, with limited SA, makes the decision.  The most common example is the self defense loophole; a pilot can defend him or herself if engaged (source here).  A single seat pilot (or two), however, is a limiting factor for several reasons including limited SA, the potential for emotional over-reaction, and the “self defense” excuse for trigger happy decisions.  The multiple people and oversight a UAV will bring will bring about more rational, calm, professional decisions. 

The single seat pilot is not just a limitation due to SA and decision making.  He or she is also a massive physical limitation.  Having a pink fleshy in the center of our flying machines requires an oxygen system, heating systems, cooling systems (which will still be needed for avionics in some fashion), pressurization systems (pressure suit or cockpit pressurization), ejection systems, and an often less than perfectly aerodynamic cockpit.  How does this translate into capability loss?  The aircraft must weigh more than it has to, can’t climb as high as might be desired, burns more fuel and costs more to operate, is exceedingly limited by its G maneuvering and defensive capability, is theoretically subject to more anti-aircraft threat rings, and can’t fly indefinitely (think weeks or months).  The pilot is a major limitation. 

UAVs have already started replacing the two obvious manned arenas….ISR and bomb dropping.  There isn’t a need for much maneuvering typically in ISR collection and bomb dropping with today’s laser and GPS technology.  We can still make better ISR and bomb dropping UAV platforms but when we make the next platform it should be an obvious choice to choose the unmanned version.  We can expect UAVs with the stealth of the B-2, the speed of the B-1, and the payload of the B-52.  Why wouldn’t we?  There is nothing that requires UAVs to be small. 

The heart of the fighter mafia isn’t safe from the UAV, either, although they’ve done a great job keeping the discussion out of the mainstream (although unmanned F-35 options have been discussed).  It could be argued there are more benefits to unmanning air to air than any other area.  The most exciting advantage is the significantly more maneuverable ability of a UAV although the heart of modern air to air engagements (especially in the theoretical early days of a conventional war with China where the “if it flys it dies” rule is in effect) remains the radar and the capability AWACs provides (another aircraft that can go unmanned).  The days of Mig Alley are pretty much over and he with the best radar and missiles with the best range usually wins.  There isn’t much need for a furball these days outside of the MOA back home in a training area.  Paint, shoot, about face, and then confirm you got em.  But certainly you may need to get closer in some circumstances.  For example, if you are flying in a fairly low threat peace keeping environment dubbed “Operation Provide Comfort” enforcing a no fly zone in your supersonic F-15C and you see two possible enemy helicopters that aren’t squawking.  You may want to shoot them down because they could be Hinds terrorizing the Iraqi people.  But they may not be.  You need to do a visual ID pass to ensure they are in fact hostile.  What happened on April 14, 1994 however was two trigger happy pilots took the lives of 26 U.S. servicemen because they saw what they wanted to see and later justified their response with, you guessed it, fear they were threatened by the vastly inferior helicopters.  A Hind is a threat to larger aircraft in certain circumstances but is not a credible threat to a supersonic F-15C.  The F-15Cs did a visual pass within roughly 1000’ of the helicopters and at a speed of 400+ mph.  The helicopters were dubbed Hinds although they were clearly not due to paint scheme and instead of the pilots following ROE to then determine the nationality of the helicopters they instead reported they were “engaged” (ie threatened or fire upon by the helicopters) and took them out.  I think it’s instructive that one of the pilots flying over the burning wreckage of the helicopters said, “Stick a fork in them, they're done.”  We can see again in this scenario the “self defense” excuse conjured out of thin error to allow two trigger happy neophytes to be the first kid on their block to get a confirmed kill.

So how would a UAV have done a better job with the Blackhawk shootdown?  First, the sensors would have been much better than the “mark one eyeball” that saw two Hinds that didn’t exist.  Secondly, the visual pass could have been done supersonic, closer, and provided crystal clear digital photos to a group of people with all the resources and time necessary to make a very positive identification.  The SA of the pilot would have been nothing compared to the SA of the crew on the ground.  Most importantly, there would be no conjured excuse of self defense to mask unprofessional trigger happy human desires.  Lastly, unprofessional human desires would be likely checked by a system of oversight. 

UAVs are the answer for ISR, attack, and air to air operations.  Cargo and tanker operations should stay manned for the most part (with a few specialized exceptions) because in both we will want the option to haul people.  If we haul people we will require the same systems and have the same limitations as a manned aircraft so being unmanned will not be an advantage.  I think we can begin developing these systems now to meet our current and future needs and will save money in the long run doing it.  First, one of the advantages to UAVs is the ability to fly higher and burn less gas with less weight and fly longer (with manned or unmanned in flight refueling).  This equates to less gas burned, less sortie generation required, less maintenance required (aircraft break when they stop flying more than when they are flying), and less of a forward deployed footprint needed.  Logistics like search and rescue capability are no longer required and the logistical support and force structure required to support operations will be lessened and more importantly less junk will need to be hauled across the world to support saving money and gas.  We won’t be hamstrung as much by countries not letting us base in their territory and lives will be more stable for our airman improving retention and quality of life.  As far as purchasing a brand new aircraft with that “new UAV” smell….that should be cheaper, as well.  Less specialized systems are required (outside of the data link systems that many manned aircraft already have).  There are single seat aircraft in the inventory where the ejection seat alone makes up half the cost of the entire aircraft.  Without all the life support systems a UAV can be much cheaper and, with the exception of air to air UAVs, a one size fits all approach can be taken for many missions.  Meeting the desired ISR objectives means we will purchase in bulk driving the per unit costs down further.  The UAV that provides the ISR we need today can be used to penetrate China’s IADs and drop bombs to supplement our cruise missile technology.  Training for the UAVs will save money, as well, because operators don’t need to build “air sense” related to flying and feeling Gs and operating in austere environments.  Like the Global Hawk most of flying becomes click and drag with a mouse.  Much of that training can be accomplished easier with computer simulators lessening peace time training costs. 

Let me sum up this novel.  The single seat pilot is the limfac both physically and more importantly mentally with great limitations to decision making mostly owing to the real or invented “fog and friction” of being threatened and needing to invoke self defense.  Every auditory and visual sense the pink fleshy pilot has in a cockpit can be accurately transmitted to operators on the ground and enhanced in near real time if not in real time providing better situational awareness.  SA is not a casualty of the unmanned argument.  The advantages given by going unmanned can be achieved now and will cost significantly less money.  Leveraging the technology, however, will mean filling the skies with UAVs beyond the pilot production pipeline.  It will mean opening up the virtual cockpit to non-pilots with less training (a year long tech school will not be required) and an Air Force that may not longer be dominated by pilots.

Great post.  By embrace I don't mean to accept these or any other arguments without thoroughly exploring counterarguments.  You'll never hear me say that.  What I meant is it's time for people to stop denying UAVs are here and now (and there are plenty of people that deny it) and people need to realize UAVs are a good thing for our country.  Yeah, it sucks for dudes that want to go fly a manned aircraft but it's better for our country and will keep your kids safer than some dude in cockpit.  Now as to your arguments agains the posted article:

1.  I agree with you about SA.  SA can be provided to the pilot in the aircraft just as well as it can be provided to some ground crew thousands of miles away.  He can have the sensors going into his helmet display like the people in the trailer would have.  The article could have done a better job of making that more clear.

2.  The article doesn't provide a scaled down cost per unit between a proposed UAV and an F-22/F-35 but neither do you.  You say the F-22/F-35 cost isn't due to life support systems but rather is due to stealth and "Gen-5 avionics" -- I'm not sure what you mean by Gen-5 avionics but I'm interested to see if you have any hard numbers to support your conclusion because the article certainly doesn't.  It does, however, discuss fuel savings, no need to forward deploy savings, etc which leads me to side with the UAV as more cost effective.  Until somebody can actually provide solid numbers though it's just speculation.

3.  I agree there will need to be some human component always but it will likely be very small and much much smaller than what we have now.  I know the F-35 "mothership" with F-35 UAVs has been proposed with it being capable of being manned or not although I'd be interested to see if the G limitations for the airframe go up when it's unmanned.

You may be right that the most expensive components of the F-22/35 is the stealth and avionics. Until we get a detailed breakdown it's just speculation but I agree it makes sense. The article points to one aircraft where the ejection seat is half the total cost but doesn't say that's a trend across the board.

That being said, the point of the article still stands. It will cost more for a manned version than a UAV because the UAV won't require life support systems like the ejection seat (and even if its not the most expensive part of the aircraft I would guess the F-22/35 ejection seat costs more than a million bones). It would be interesting to see a financial breakdown but common sense tells me it will be much cheaper to make and fly UAVs.

Over at F-16.Net there was a discussion (not sure how good the data is and I'm not taking a lot of time to look) that breaks the F-22 cost down into:

1.  Airframe $76 million

2.  Engines $19 million

3.  Avionics $25 million

I would guess the ejection seat and other life support system costs are included in the 76 million.  I would also assume more than half of the 25 million could be dropped in a UAV since it won't require fancy digital instruments etc etc...but instead will be displayed on computer screens (and not merely 15" screens obviously) and one set of ground displays could display from multiple UAVs so there is cost savings there.

Now how much would the system cost for the remote control portion?  Well an entire Predator only costs $30 million and a Reaper totals to $70 million.  Not sure how much of that is the "remote control system" and maybe somebody could find a cost breakdown but it appears to me that airframe to airframe the cost savings are significant.  In the slightest just this data alone I think shows you could take the savings from the airframe/avionics and easily pay for the "remote control system" and probably have money to spare.

These savings doesn't include the real money savings of not having to deploy tons and tons of logistics support to operate out of Saudi or Kuwait, pay pilots, etc etc.  Putting all that junk on a ship and shipping or flying it over to support extended operations is where the big money is spent.

I'm sure somebody can refine the numbers a bit and find a better data source to aid the discussion.

I don't have any numbers for you all, but I came across something this morning to add to the "capabilities argument" for the UASs:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123116452

Looks like we are finding more and more ways to to ensure we have "global reach."  The article sheds some light on our ever increasing role in joint service.  Here's another article that further explains:

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2...s_091808w/

As we move towards more of a joint-service doctrine, I forsee a lot of this kind of work in the future.  They're definitely here to stay, and a lot more of them than we initially expected.

Well I guess my common sense tells me that it's going to require a lot of extra technology inside of a UAV to feed all of the needed information back to the guy in the trailer in Vegas.  Cameras, sensors, and SATCOM are the things that come to mind first.  Those things require the support of very expensive technology.  You mentioned that an ejection seat cost at least a million bones.  Yea that's a lot of money, but it's a drop in the hat compared to that of the total F-22 cost.  The 22 costs about $128 million per plane.  Even if the ejection seat cost FIVE million dollars, that is still less that FOUR PERCENT of the total cost of the plane.  How much does a tank of oxygen cost?  It can't be a million dollars.  How much does heating and AC cost?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the heat comes from the engine and the AC comes from the air outside of the jet.  How much does pressurization cost?  Well, will a UAV not still have to be pressurized to protect the integrity of all that expensive shit inside of it?  And yes, you could save money by removing the fancy avionics display, but how much is that trailer in Vegas going to cost to fly these things out of?  My guess is that it will be very expensive, even if it is used to fly hundreds of aircraft.

I agree that much of the pilot support equipment costs are probably included in the 76 million for the airframe, but I bet it is still only a very small fraction of that.  The bulk of the cost for the airframe is in everything it takes to make it stealth.  Our former UAO at our Det was a loggy at Whiteman and used to say that the paint for the B-2 was something like a million dollars per bucket (maybe some fellow Jayhawkers can help me with this).  This is the same paint we put on the 22 and 35, and it's the same paint we would have to put on a stealth UAV.  Have we considered how much of the airframe costs are used to create the streamlined airframe with an interior weapons bay?  These are all going to be costs that a UAV with same capabilities is going to incur.

Also, you're still going to have to pay pilots, they will just be in Vegas instead of in the cockpit.  Even though you could fly 100 different UAVs from the same trailer, you can't fly them all at once with the same pilot from the same trailer.  What happens if we need to launch our entire fleet?  We would need hundreds of trailers to fly these things all at once.  Each trailer or remote pilot station would require the same “fancy avionics display” in all of these trailers, plus all of the big screens and the team of people it will take to create the SA we would need to have a clear picture of what’s going on half way around the world.

Yea, the predator and the reaper are cheap and stealthy, but they would get smoked by the MIG-29 or the SU-35.  We would need a whole new breed of UAV to match the capabilities of the 22 and the 35 and keep the air supremacy capabilities we currently have with our manned fighters.  A stealthy air supremacy UAV would have to have the same paint, interior weapons bay, and streamlined airframe as our current Gen-5 fighters to deliver the same capabilities as the ones we have now, thus incurring the same bulk of the expenses.

My point is, I’m still not convinced that we’re going to save THAT MUCH MONEY by unmanning Gen-5 fighter aircraft, or by creating UAVs with the same capabilities of those aircraft.  Even if we did save a little money, I don't feel it would be significant based on what we've discussed here (still just speculation).  I’m also not convinced that we’ll ever trust our primary mission (air supremacy) that’s allowed us to win all of our modern military conflicts completely to remote controlled aircraft.

WORD!

To all the rated guys I know that say "Nah, never happen, a Preator can't replace a B-1...it's too small" (without acknowledging the undislosed obvious reality that such aircraft are in the works)....here you go: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/1..._ceremony/

US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane unveiled

US aerospace'n'killware goliath Northrop Grumman yesterday took the wraps off one of the most advanced robot aircraft in the world, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS). The X-47B is intended to operate from the flight deck of US Navy aircraft carriers, carrying out entire missions including air-to-air refuelling without pilot input.

Bow down before your Stealth Robot Overlord, puny fleshlings!

(For a full enormo hi-res of this pic, click here.)

"The X-47B will demonstrate how unmanned combat aircraft can operate from aircraft carriers ... extending the carrier's reach and power projection from anywhere in the world," said Captain Martin Deppe, of the US Navy.

The X-47B project will provide just two demonstrator aircraft, mainly intended to prove that unmanned planes can successfully take off from and land onto US carriers. Catapult launch - and even more so, arrested landings - have traditionally been considered one of the most difficult and stressful piloting feats.

Apart from proving the concept of unmanned carrier aircraft, however, the X-47B will also be able to conduct air-to-air refuelling - giving it almost unlimited endurance. The US Navy hasn't asked for more, but in fact the aircraft would have little difficulty carrying weapons and flying autonomous strike missions, as it is derived from a previous joint programme between the navy and air force intended to produce a plane which could do just that.

The X-47B, in fact, will be one of the first true killer robots, able to conduct a mission using live weapons without needing to communicate with pilots or even supervisors on its mother ship or back in the USA. Current roboplanes are typically handled in combat over satcomms channels from bases in America, and take off and land under the control of pilots in ground stations near the runway.

Apart from its robot brain and controls, the X-47B also boasts much longer range than a normal carrier jet - and features Stealth technology. Some in the US Navy hope that it will allow carriers to stand much further off from threatening enemy coasts of the future, which might harbour dangerous ship-killing missiles able to punch through the fleet's defences.

Others are hostile, however. Pilots are one of the US navy's dominant subcultures, and they count themselves better than lowly airforce pukes because they do arrested landings - "traps". The Top Guns won't be looking forward to telling their children that there's no longer any way to win one's glorious wings of gold and the respect of the nation by jockeying a tailhook jet down to a wet deck on a stormy night far out at sea.

According to Northrop, the X-47B, having now been completed, will now enter ground tests in preparation for a first runway flight next autumn. Carrier trials are to begin in 2011. ®