Future of Air to Air Combat Glimpsed?

I was originally told this was a russian fighter tracking the Reaper, which is not that new. In fact, there's the infamous Predator vs MiG fight where the Predator fired a Stinger at the MiG after the MiG fired on the Predator. The Predator lost and the Stinger fell short.

However! The Russians claim one of their drones observed and tracked Reaper. I guess might be time to put the Stingers back on the Predators again.

It does give an interesting glimpse of the future. If two Gorgon Stares (or ARGUS-Ts) could be places ventral and dorsal, it might be possible to get the video sufficient for an AAW engagement. OTOH, you better have very high bandwidth sats safe from jamming and ASATs. Like the ones the Russians and Chinese are developing.

a reply to: anzha

They're a long way from uav air to air combat. The time lag is too long still.

a reply to: Zaphod58

For dog fights, sure. But what about as missile trucks controlled by an LRS-B, F-35 or E-3?

a reply to: anzha

Which, by the time they get that done, they'll be a lot closer to an air to air uav.

Seems it be easier to Give it a AI with a parameter to self defend itself.flip it to air combat mode and anything in its range when activated or it detects a lock onto it. Maybe give it a swarm of defensive craft so when one is attacked th e others move in and destroy the attacker. Arm them with Sidewinders.

a reply to: yuppa

That would probably not fly politically. All it would take would be one airliner straying into the self defense bubble for a disaster to take place and heads to roll.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: anzha

They're a long way from uav air to air combat. The time lag is too long still.

I imagine the future of air-to-air combat could entail fully autonomous UAV's - that would eliminate the time lag-factor. But, boy, do we have to hope the algorithms are up to the task!

a reply to: DupontDeux

They're actually looking at other ways, including a full VR system for the pilots. There are ways in development to eliminate the lag factor.

I envision a flying air to air/radar system
fully automated
the future of warfare definitely belongs to drones and alternatively, countermeasures.

I've often thought that drones would make an excellent compliment to a Carrier. A support Drone Carrier could run awacs, asw and cap flights for the Group, leaving the Carrier pilots to focus on attack roles. You could even have drones in a support role for attacks.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: DupontDeux

They're actually looking at other ways, including a full VR system for the pilots. There are ways in development to eliminate the lag factor.

Uh, that IS interesting - that could benefit lots of fields. It is one of the major challenges when it comes to 'remote surgery', where robotic arms are controlled by a surgeon somewhere else. In general lag is pretty low, but it can spike unexpectedly, and it CAN last long enough for it to make the timing between the off site surgeon and the onsite medical staff difficult. Lag elimination/protection would be hugely interesting and could open up for use in, say, battlefields.


Also, it could make my pages load faster.


I would be super interested if you had any links to sites explaining about the techniques being developed.

a reply to: DupontDeux

They're still in the black. There have been hints to them, but nothing really that says how they're looking at it.

One way that's been rumored is a laser SATCOM system. It would be virtually undetectable, extremely hard to jam, and have as close to zero lag as we can currently get. NASA tested a laser communications system on the LADEE mission and got some really nice speed up and down, from the moon.

archive.c4isrnet.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Interesting.
Thanks!

Anyway, to the topic at hand: the one lag factor that can never be eliminated is human reaction time. It is usually a bit under a second. Add to that whatever lag from the communication round trip, and one might think that the military seriously considers autonomous fighters (and not just armed 'regular' uav's). What do you think?

Having a .5 - 1 second advantage plus the advantage of maneuvering beyond human pilots' physical limits must sound tempting - and add to that that there would be no pilot to be shot down and killed or held hostage.

The autonomous fighters could be under human oversight/control until it is decided that an air-to-air is unavoidable. In other words, it could be autonomous but not have the power to decide to go into 'combat mode'. This way the fighter could not just go off and shoot down a Malaysian Airline 777 it deemed to be an enemy craft.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I don't think bandwidth is really the problem.
Increased bandwidth does not overcome the speed of light. As long as you are bouncing telemetry off of a satellite, you are stuck with that 186,000 mps. You are stuck with that latency between the target breaking right and you seeing it. You are stuck with the latency between you moving the stick and the drone responding.

I had a bit of sticktime playing Flanker online. Lag sucks in air combat.

a reply to: DupontDeux

The read I've gotten is that they're extremely reluctant to go autonomous for anything but ISR and resupply UAVs. While the advantages are obvious, there is too much risk right now.

a reply to: Phage

Why not just move the drone operators closer to where the fight is going on ?

Or have a mobile command aircraft like an AWAC but with the drone operators inside, flying out of range of the fight but within enough range that latency isn't so much of a problem

It must be hell flying a drone though with so much latency

a reply to: Discotech

Why not just move the drone operators closer to where the fight is going on ?

No reason, I guess.
Unless the drivers get seasick.

a reply to: Discotech

AWACS is going to be swamped trying to keep everything straight in a large battle. They're going to have to coordinate the fight, getting aircraft to the tanker and back into the fight, watch for aircraft coming after them or the tankers, etc. To add in uav control would end up with a similar result as trying to fight it from a longer distance.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Discotech

Why not just move the drone operators closer to where the fight is going on ?

No reason, I guess.
Unless the drivers get seasick.

He.

Also, it is doubtful it would make much of a difference. No matter to where you moved the operators you would still need to use a satellite link and that is what adds most of the lag.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: DupontDeux

The read I've gotten is that they're extremely reluctant to go autonomous for anything but ISR and resupply UAVs. While the advantages are obvious, there is too much risk right now.

I agree that it is probably to risky right now, but this is after all about the FUTURE of air-to-air combat.