> Boeing suggested that the innovation could ultimately be used to help train pilots, providing an adversary they could practise firing on.
They're not even trying, are they.
They're not even trying, are they.
An aircraft is now just a mobile long-range weapons platform.
That same type of thinking was prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its failings ultimately led to the creation of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, more commonly known as TOPGUN.[1]
Positive target identification sometimes requires closing within visual range of the target. As long as there's still a human in the cockpit, the necessity of pilots being trained and equipped for dogfighting will persist.
Even then, there's still going to be dogfighting in a sense, because one of the foremost advantages of autonomous figher aircraft is their ability to execute high-G maneuvers far in excess of what humans can tolerate.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Fighter_Weap...
For example, if the skies of tomorrow are filled with inexpensive drones, it's grossly cost-ineffective to fight with long range guided missiles.
We don't plan to fight calvary anymore, do we? And hence there goes dogfighting.
Perhaps. But human dogfighting skills will prove even more worthless in that future, relative to the guided missiles.
Still, it's interesting to see the progressive powerlessness of fighter pilots and open testing of fighter drones.