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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

I've heard the communication argument but I'm not convinced since the F-35 itself is sold as the "connected platform" which is supposed to be constantly communicating with the base and the troops on the ground and have complete situation awareness thanks to that integrated communications.

If F-35 can stay connected, so can the drones.

Drones also have the inherent advantage to do manoeuvres way beyond of what human can do or withstand, they don't carry the human and the devices that are made to keep it alive and in control.

F-35 is also know for not flying that well, it's not really a dog fight machine and the scenarios where the plane is supposed to excel are stealth operation, remote intelligence gathering, launching missiles way before visual contact etc anyway. I don't see why drones can't do any of that.

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I’m not sure you can push that much two-way bandwidth without compromising stealth; it’s one way to push information to the jet, or exchange little nuggets or he other way, but actually steering the thing remotely would make you totally visible to any radar.

Plus, if you could disable an enemy airforce by destroying the infrastructure, that’s an uncomfortably simple way to ground them. An F35 can operate successfully in total radio silence if need be.

I believe there's no fundamental reason to have drones communicate %100 of the time and receive high fidelity inputs, even consumer drones are quite capable to fly without precise controls from the pilot.

These days, a sub 1000$ consumer drone can follow targets, execute pre-determined tasks, navigate around obstacles and fly back home safely when the communication is lost.

Right, but it's not doing all this while trying to dodge SAM missiles, avoid radars, push the envelope of what it's capable aerodynamically, continuously evaluate a dynamic situation, identify the actual goal (it could be moving, hiding etc.), yada yada yada. Also, losing an aircraft, crewed or not, is further liability - ideally you want to scramble the debris before the enemy can get to it to recover whatever intelligence remains.

The months and years that military pilots spend in training is not just "driving license", but how to best operate a sophisticated destruction machine.

Comparing military jets to the capabilities of commercial drones is massively missing the point of the actual challenges of airborne warfare.

These probably aren't unsolvable problems, I'm not saying we can never replace crewed jets with drones, there are just fundamental reasons why this isn't happening right now.

Of course, drones are not a drop-in replacement for fighter jets with pilots but IMHO drones are inherently superior on most aspects and the shortcomings are solvable problems.

A bit like, Archers having some advantages over rifles but overall rifles being vay superior making archers irrelevant.

It's a great analogy actually. See here for example: https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/01/12/89319/the-puzzli...

Firearms took over bows in Europe around 16th century. But they have been around for far longer, as early as 13th century, possibly much earlier too. Even when firearms took over, they were in many ways inferior to bows. The crucial difference was that they required less skill to operate, so much easier from a general logistical point of view. Training longbowmen in medieval England was a whole massive social project.

So even being the long-term solution doesn't make something the right solution right now, the time gap until it takes over can be very long, and even once it is the right solution, it might not be due to actual technical superiority (at least not initially) but rather wider strategic considerations.

And just to stem the thought, this wasn't because people in the past were stoopid, humans have always devoted a huge amount of skill, cunning and attention to warmongering. Technological progress in military technology was always rapid (if likely slower than today), we just don't see it that way, since one bow kinda looks the same as another to us - but could be an enormous advantage.

USA uses drones for decades.

> The first known U.S. drone strike in Yemen was November 3, 2002 (killing al-Qaeda operative Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi)

Sure, US is one of major drone developers and users.

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