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Comment by stevehawk | Hacker News Reader

pilots don't really take up as much space on these planes as you'd think. these planes are huge. the F22 is over sixty feet long. if you replaced the pilot, controls and screens, weight wise you might get to carry one more AAMRAM, but that sucker is twelve feet long.

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These are large aircraft (though the F-16 is significantly smaller than an F-22) but the pilot + ejection seat + airtight pressurized compartment + life support systems + displays and controls really starts to add up in both the mass and volume budgets.

But the pilot requires more design compromises. The requirement to have a large canopy protruding from the fuselage for maximum visibility is a challenge to both building a stealthy aircraft and aerodynamics.

Also, currently the pilot and their circulatory system keeps aircraft from turning at more than ~9G (and then only for brief periods of time). Without a pilot, it would be possible to build aircraft with stunning maneuverability.

The maneuverability thing is mostly a myth. Sure it's theoretically possible to build a drone that can turn at >9G. But it won't have sufficient thrust to sustain that rate of turn without losing a lot of energy. And now the airframe has to be stronger to handle the stress, which means heavier, and that compromises mission effectiveness in other ways. And for all that it still wouldn't be able to out maneuver a missile in most realistic conditions.

A better option would probably be to design drones that are less maneuverable. Sure more will be shot down. But that will lower the price so just manufacture more.

Following that logic to its conclusion, you could save a lot of money by skipping out on the fuel and carrying capacity to make it back home.

Another commenter said it first, but pretty much any set of reasoning that gets you to autonomous drones eventually leads to simply making guided missiles.

A lot of the interfaces for the pilots add complexity that could be reduced in the case of an autonomous aircraft, not just weight or complexity of interface. But actual complexity in the design and development stages. They also add constraints on expanding the capability of the system as new controls have to go somewhere, either displacing existing ones, changing the "buttonology" of the existing interfaces, or being tacked on to a mostly empty (hah) corner of the cockpit.

If we didn't have to care about those things, changing the existing infrastructure in an aircraft would be greatly simplified (not simple, but simplified).

Have them fly head on, looking out the nose, like a bob racer. Place the radar somewhere else.

The airframe can handle more Gs than the pilot can though, so if you don't have a pilot then in theory it opens up maneuvers that were not previously performable.

None of these maneuvers are useful. High G maneuvers rapidly bleed energy. Slowing yourself down for a missile is... not a winning strategy.

High-G maneuvers are great for an in-close adversary moving relative to you. They don't do much against an adversary approaching at Mach 4. At that speed, while pulling 10G, you'll make less than a hundred foot change in your predicted position while the missile closes the last mile.

And keep in mind, the missile will be actively tracking you during this period.

And also will proximity detonate, it doesn’t even need to hit you.

That's why I said "in theory".

Thank you for being a voice of reason in all of this.

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