Something Interesting

[Nacho]

Today I was watching the show Modern Marvels on the History Channel. I forget what the topic was called but it was on the future of aviation. One thing that got my attention was a little thing that the army uses called the BATCAM (Battlefield Air Targeting Camera Autonomous Micro-Air Vehicle). It's a small aircraft that is used for observation purposes. Before the show ended they said that in the future the army might use these small planes to fly them and drop bombs on enemy targets. When I heard that I got the thought that maybe if that happens and the enemies develop theyre own BATCAMS there might be dogfights between these little machines, because if they do start arming them with bombs and drop them and other countries start doing the same and soon the planes might be armed with some sort of guns to shoot the bombers down. This might not happen but it does sound like something interesting.

[Sagittarius]

In my opinion the future of aerial warfare lies in unmanned aircrafts of various sizes.
In the future a fighter (maybe a F22 in its later years) could be piloted by a AI - guided from the ground if necessary.
I guess this would allow for example more g-forces because the human body would not anymore set a limit to them.
However i full-sized fighter/bombers are very expensive, so I suppose they will be more and more replaced by smaller, specialized drones - maybe controlled by a human piloted aircraft in the surrounding area.
These small drones might operate in large numbers if not clusters because they are cheaper. But due to their small size and limited range rather in smaller areas than on long range missions.
These drones may be usefull in urban warfare as well as in pathless terrain where they could assist or even replace regular infantry or special forces.

[rainbase]

When you consider how much of a modern aircrafts weight, space and cost go to maintaining the life systems of it's pilot, I would say it's a given that eventually most military fighters will be unmanned.

In future wars, I see a general marching up and down behind a row of computer geeks with their noses pressed to the screens of their laptops. The future Red Baron will probably be remembered for scoring 71,557,030 points in the Third World War. (He was a 377 lb. kid from Ottamwa, Iowa and diagnosed with "a.d.d."!)