Article

2012-06-22 Science & Technology

X-47B Flight Testing at Edwards Air Force Base - Successful - Second X-47B to Patuxent River

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Posted by Water Modem 2012-06-22 10:34|| || Front Page|| [11 views ] Top

#1 Nice replacement for the troubled F-35 program...

Posted by Steve White 2012-06-22 12:02|| 2012-06-22 12:02|| Front Page Top

#2 Maybe, but it's going to be a while before they have the situational awareness to fight.

Posted by gorb 2012-06-22 12:35|| 2012-06-22 12:35|| Front Page Top

#3 When I first saw the headline, I thought I was time traveling: Read it as XB-47. Jeeze.....

Posted by Alaska Paul 2012-06-22 15:08|| 2012-06-22 15:08|| Front Page Top

#4 We'll still manned AC for a while yet, as neither the USDOD nor mainstream America nor the US Econ nor even the Fed is ready for tote Unmanned-Space Techs.

Our Allies' SpaceProgs are problematic, the EU is the only OWG "Union" actually formally set up but is in various deep crises, + Bammer Solar keeps going bankrupt.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2012-06-22 19:54|| 2012-06-22 19:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Maybe, but it's going to be a while before they have the situational awareness to fight.

I'm not so sure. Anyone who has played a flight sim knows about the problem of situational awareness given the limited inputs. The other aspect, for a real pilot, is the difficulty of paying attention to everything at. Machines are great at doing everything at once (or at least faking it) and can deal with a lot more inputs than humans.

Consider the Google self-driving car. It goes on a mission from A to B, all the while maintaining awareness and spatial relationships with other traffic and politely yielding to pedestrians. Change the optimization goals of its algorithms (and provide some better weapons) and suddenly it is hunting other vehicles and mowing down pedestrians with mechanical glee.

I'm not suggesting there are no technical challenges to unmanned air combat, but I bet it happens sooner than we think. One of the modern trends in artificial intelligence is machine learning - training programs how to solve problems that are to hard to program. I bet someone is doing this right now with air combat maneuvering. "Would you like to play a game?"

Posted by SteveS 2012-06-22 20:13|| 2012-06-22 20:13|| Front Page Top

#6 OTOH CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > US PENTAGON'S BEST-KEPT SECRET - F-35 IS PROGRESSING NICELY.

> Flight tests are ahead of schedule.
> Costs per Unit-Programme going steadily downward.
> Mullah bullah Internat States becom interested in Procurement + Tech-Sharing.

Iff the F-35 = new heavyweight "F-15", F-22 Raptor = new "F-16/18", as per HI-LO SUPER-PLANE MIX???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2012-06-22 22:26|| 2012-06-22 22:26|| Front Page Top

Posted by Water Modem 2012-06-22 22:50|| 2012-06-22 22:50|| Front Page Top

#8 more detailed story

Posted by Water Modem 2012-06-22 22:54|| 2012-06-22 22:54|| Front Page Top

#9 competition

Posted by Water Modem 2012-06-22 23:03|| 2012-06-22 23:03|| Front Page Top

23:19 trailing wife
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