Last manned fighter
Fifth generation fighters - the most modern class of combat aircraft to date. F-35 - the latest development in this class, has not yet entered the troops. But the development of technology can turn the F-35 into the last fighter in the usual sense for us.
Fifth generation
There is no precise classification of fighter generations. Most experts consider the main characteristic of the fifth-generation fighter aircraft to be highly systematic combat vehicles, the integration of the aircraft into a single complex of forces and means, coordinated and controlled by a computer network. The times when the regiment commander set the task for the pilots, pointing out the main and alternate targets on the map, remained in the distant past. Now the pilot of the aircraft on combat patrol may not know the exact target, the coordinates of which receives the on-board computer.
The fifth generation fighter is primarily multifunctional. It can replace cars of different classes, both land and sea based. This technique is equally well suited for intercepting targets, and for conducting air combat, and for attacks on ground, surface and underwater targets. And this means that whole classes are doomed to extinction aviation techniques.
In addition, the fifth generation aircraft unified. They have the same engines, avionics and electronic components. This reduces the cost of building aircraft, simplifies their maintenance and facilitates the training of technicians.
But the electronics that make fifth generation fighters so perfect can play a cruel joke on them. It is electronics that turns manned aircraft into an endangered type of technology.
Pilot becomes a passenger
Data exchange between command centers, ground forces, satellites, radar stations and on-board aircraft systems occurs so quickly that the pilot is not physically able to track information flows. Electronics controls everything: the flight parameters of the vehicle, the capture and tracking of targets, the selection and application weapons.
Moreover, modern electronic systems are capable of replacing the pilot at each stage of flight: takeoff, climb, flight at a predetermined flight level, descent and landing can occur without human intervention. Computers can control the machine and weapons and in battle. In practice, computers do this, since the launch of a modern medium-range air-to-air missile can be carried out from a distance of several tens of kilometers.
The pilot actually turned into a passenger who can take control in a critical situation or make an important decision. However, intervention in the operation of electronic systems is required less and less, and the remote operator can also decide.
Helps modern aircraft pilot is not much. But it can significantly interfere. The pilot takes a valuable place, requires the presence of life support systems on board. The pilot is sensitive to overload, lack of oxygen and vibration. The man on board the fighter is the most expensive, vulnerable and weak component of the combat system.
Having got rid of the person, the fighter of the next generations will become more perfect and universal. But it will be a completely different class of technology.
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