In effect, if you think about going to war with the United States, you take for granted that American aircraft will control the skies above. Robotic jet fighters could change that. And this is forcing American air force generals to confront a very unsavory prospect; a sixth generation fighter that is flown by software, not a pilot.
It's not just that most of the those American air force generals began their careers as fighter pilots. No, the reason is more practical. American air superiority has largely been the result of superior pilots. The U.S. didn't always have the best aircraft, but they always had the most talented and resourceful pilots. And that's what gave the U.S. its edge. Will that translate to software piloted fighters? Research to date seems to indicate it will.
Meanwhile, simulations, using fighter flown by software, versus those flown by humans, have been used for over two decades. The "software pilots" have gotten better, and better. Moreover, a fighter without a pilot is more maneuverable (because some maneuvers are too stressful on the human body.) UAV fighters can be smaller, cheaper, stealthier and more expendable. But the key to software pilots is the development of superior tactics, and artificial intelligence (AI) that is more capable than anything your opponent can come up with.
The U.S. Air Force, and several other air forces, have already created fighter pilot software, and now the United States, and Russia, are creating pilotless fighters. Many air force generals are convinced that the pilotless fighters will perform as well for real, as they have in the simulations. So convinced are U.S. Air Force generals, that they are seriously considering a sixth generation fighter that will not carry a human pilot. Otherwise, enemy pilotless fighters would have an edge over the U.S. sixth generation aircraft.
Much like the British launching of HMS Dreadnought a century ago made every existing battleship obsolete, robotic fighters able to fly and fight better than human pilots will make even the best manned fighter obsolete.
And just as the death of old style battleships erased Britain's naval superiority in an instant to one ship, leaving the question of who would dominate the seas to the nation that could build the most dreadnoughts, air superiority will rest on who builds the best robotic planes that will own the skies.
Of course, our superiority is built on more than just our superb pilots. Our entire system of air power that organizes and directs this air power in coordination with the other services simply exploits the abilities of our pilots, who in turn exploit the capabilities of their aircraft.
But robotic pilots will do a great deal in overturning the game board that we've dominated since 1944 and give our enemies a chance to play a new game that we may or may not learn to dominate.
