F-35 grounded.

[Harry Lime]

Well, this is fairly typical. They STEAL our design, then decide they can do better without us, then bribe us to join THEIR new project (for a huge cost) and then, when it doesn't work, they ground it and IT WILL COST US for them to "fix" it. WE always end up paying for their mistakes/problems/failures - somehow...

Serves them right. We should have started development for the supersonic variant of the Harrier (i.e P1154) straight after the GR7/9 entered service.

Ummmm, we started development of supersonic Harriers well before the GR7/9 were even thought of. By the end of Oct 1964, Bristol Siddeley had run the BS100 engine for the first time. This was essentially a Pegasus with Plenum Chamber Burning (PCB) and some bits and bobs from the Olympus 22R and could deliver 30,000lb thrust. The RAF and the RN had already indicated they both wanted a supersonic Harrier and Hawker Siddeley had machined nearly all major airframe componants by the time the project was cancelled in February 1965.

Even a cursory look over the history of the Harrier will show that although Britain put a lot of effort into it, it did so with help from foreign partners, with the most active of these being the United States.

Derek, whilst we are all entitled to our differing views on differing subjects, I can't help but feel that your post is somewhat misjudged and seems to be slightly ill-informed. I would also agree with mrvr6 that Bill is just responding to your post in a logical, reasoned and well presented riposte.

Mark.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Harry Lime

[Giorgio N]

are uavs quick enough to go with typhoons etc?

or do you mean a combined arms kind of setup?

is it safe to have uavs in the same airspace as manned planes?

whats the situational awareness like with a uav?

UAVs are as fast as conventional aircrafts and can actualy be faster as the design of a UAV is less restricted by the various requirements of a piloted aircraft. The elimination of the pilot means less weight for all the supporting systems and the lack of a canopy means a cleaner shape

Regarding the safety of joint operations, it's just a matter of timing things correctly. As this is already done anyway to avoid interferences between aircrafts belonging to different packages, it would be no big problem.

If all the aircrafts emploied are interconnected to themselves and to a main central station, then it's easy to let each UAV know where any other piloted or pilotless aircraft is. Such a network would also provide the piloted aircrafts information on the threats identified by the UAVs well before they have to approach these threats, allowing the mission profiles to be changed accordingly. Again, all of this already exists in a sense (and in embrional form at least has existed for many years), it's just a matter of improving the system. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

Regardless if we like it or not, the future of air combat belongs to pilotless vehicles, starting with the strike and ground attack missions. Air defence will take longer as in this case a pilot still has a place (for the moment...). It could be said that UAVs have actually already taken a large part in attack missions years ago: in all the conflicts that have seen Western forces against another country, the largest part of the first strikes have always been conducted using cruise missiles with very little involvement of conventional piloted aircrafts. And these missiles have not disappointed: they are accurate, they are cheap, nobody cares if they are shot down, can be fired from hard to find submerged submarines.. a lot of advantages !

Now replace the missile with a UAV armed like a conventional aircraft and with a good degree of AI, and there are other advantages, although they are not cheap anymore.

There is only one risk I can see with the more and more widespread use of UAVs: that the fact that their loss does not involve human losses and is easier to justify from a political point of view might tempt the users in being more aggressive and therefore embark in more armed confrontations than in the past. But this is a moral problem that goes well beyond the scope of the thread

[mrvr6]

2 seaters with the back seater in control of a uav?

i doubt ai is anywhere near as good at descision making as a human

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

The temporary grounding has been lifted. All aircraft cleared to return to flight. The root cause of the crack in the blade was determined to be sustained operation at high temperature beyond the defined duty cycle, as a consequence of the extensive test plan.

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_03_01_2013_p0-554481.xml

Cheers,

Bill