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| Britain | ||
| Rise of the machines?? - Pilotless Plane Can Launch Own Attacks | ||
| 2007-11-04 | ||
| It sounds like something straight out of a Terminator film script. Future air battles may be fought by robots with minimum human input. The Ministry of Defence is spending £124m developing a prototype of Britain's first unmanned fighter-bomber. Named Taranis after the Celtic god of thunder, the sinister bat-wing shape will be the size of one of the Red Arrows' Hawk display jets. Its range will be intercontinental. It can carry bombs, missiles and canon. And, for the first time, it will be capable of shooting down other aircraft. "This is a machine able to think for itself," said Chris Allam, project director at BAE Systems' top secret works at Salmesbury, near Preston in Lancashire. "It's a new generation of UAV (unmanned air vehicles). It won't need a pilot on the ground with a joystick. It will be assigned an area to operate in and then will acquire and track targets autonomously." The prospect raises obvious fears. What if the deadly machine turned on its creators?
"They're valuable for operations that are dull - such as protracted surveillance - dirty, operating in a contaminated environment or dangerous, where there's heavy anti-aircraft fire," explained aviation writer Jon Lake. "But their sensors are far inferior to a human being's whose eye can take in detail in an instant." I was the first TV journalist to be allowed inside the factory to see the first metal being cut on the prototype. The builders are justly proud of a project which restores Britain to the premiership of aerospace innovation. It should fly within two years and could be operational in ten. The French are developing a similar weapon, whilst America is building a solar-powered plane to stay aloft for a year. This really could be the rise of the machines. | ||
| Posted by:Delphi |
| #18 I didn't think of them, lotp -- thanks. My apologies, Anonymoose. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-11-04 21:18 |
| #17 Bleh, that was badly worded. Time to go to bed. China will make a try for this I think. Or possibly Japan if the nationalists gain control again. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-04 21:17 |
| #16 China, tw. At least they will give it a serious try, and so long as they have enough government control and unmarriable young men to push resources into military R&D, after their grad students come home from our computer science and engineering and physics schools. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-04 21:16 |
| #15 Anonymoose, you assume that other countries are going to choose to afford these things. Look at Iran, our next opponent: their pilots get hardly any plain vanilla flight time, and that only when the technicians cannibalize one airplane to get replacement parts for the next one. Or Russia, which finally has enough oil profits to feed, clothe and maybe even pay the human forces. In Britain the only way they get to do the development work is by positioning the things as environmentally better than actual airplanes, according to lotp. The EU isn't going to spend money for such things, so who are you thinking of? Chavez's Venezuela? Separately, let the Wii kiddies play with the things and it will all be over in hours. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-11-04 21:06 |
| #14 The furball is shedding. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-04 19:52 |
| #13 Headed towards Ender's Game. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-11-04 16:33 |
| #12 Paging Dr. Forbin. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2007-11-04 15:13 |
| #11 The British next will come up with robotic infanty. The perk is they will be programmed not to surrender unlike some of thier regular forces. |
| Posted by: Leah Ashley 2007-11-04 14:50 |
| #10 Air war is getting a lot more interesting. Future manned ops will be stealth penetration and 2nd echelon high performance, and long range rear area logistics transport. The drones will be recce of all varieties, high tech fighter aircraft, and armadas of low tech, inexpensive aircraft to vie with each other and the high tech fighters. An attack would commence with stealth bombers hitting critical enemy C&C points, then a low tech air armada would be launched, along with cruise missiles, against major targets. This would be defended against with low tech drone fighters, while the high tech drones tried to get and keep air supremacy in the higher altitudes and take out manned enemy fighters. While faster and more maneuverable, the high tech drones couldn't descend into the low tech space without becoming prime targets; but low tech drones couldn't venture up that high against the superior aircraft. In case of a breakthrough in either direction, the manned aircraft in the 2nd echelon would police up any drones that penetrated. All told, one hell of a dogfight, while trying to take out major ground targets at the same time. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-11-04 13:07 |
| #9 "...to kids on their XBoxes and PS3 who can sit at home and do it remotely." The US Airforce should ask the gaming conventions to be scheduled during Ramadan, part of the contests would be kills in Iraq and Afghanistan, level 1 winners can hunt down screetch and Osama Bin Hiding in Paky Land using stealth stuff. War over. |
| Posted by: Crereper Bucket4485 2007-11-04 10:30 |
| #8 Hell, I'm waiting for them to contract it all out, to kids on their XBoxes and PS3 who can sit at home and do it remotely. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-11-04 09:04 |
| #7 "Return to base, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that." "Tee time at 13:00 HAL" "Inbound, ETA 12:32 Requesting permission to land" |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-11-04 08:44 |
| #6 "Return to base, HAL." "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that." |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-11-04 08:27 |
| #5 I, for one, welcome the rule of our new autonomous flying overlords. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-11-04 07:09 |
| #4 Will it be running Vista ? |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-11-04 06:37 |
| #3 Now we know why the Brits have been delaying paying for IFF technology. They probably figure the rest of the civilized world will probably be glad to give it to them as a "gift" once they start using it! :-) |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-11-04 02:57 |
| #2 At least they did not name it the M-5 |
| Posted by: Agar, Conquistador of the Voles007 2007-11-04 02:27 |
| #1 Hat tip to BAE. The money saved on flight pay and golf courses alone should make these units affordable at nearly any price. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-11-04 01:50 |