this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
372 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
59339 readers
5058 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You're better off with drones
What's the difference? A remotely or AI-piloted fighter jet is just a big drone.
Drones are designed without cockpits. Retrofitting remote-control into an F-16 does not seem like the best choice to me.
Retrofitting F-16s to become drones (whether rc or ai-controlled) as well as designing a variant ditching human support for weight and monetary gains is the rational choice as long as non stealth aircraft are viable. In that case you'd stick to F-35s.
It makes no sense to waste billions worth of perfectly capable and proven airframes, engines and avionics. Any future drone that will have at least the same level of capabilities as an f-16 will cost practically cost the same. At the cost of high performance aircraft life support does not add that much cost to a plane, pilot costs (and availability) are a much bigger issue.
The only thing that makes it bigger is the cockpit. There’s no difference.
But can a drone fly like an F-16?
If an f16 is remote controlled, it's technically a drone.
Yes.