Why can’t they be piloted like drones, and wouldn’t that make them more flexible in designs since they don’t need to worry about space for pilots/gforces?
In: Technology
Ask a CoD player about the input latency of running 165FPS vs >200FPS even if your monitor is only 144Hz, or why having 90ms lag to the server instead of 35ms is game-ruiningly bad and you will get reasonably close to the answer. The speed at which aircraft operate make any lag between control input and aircraft response bad, possibly fatally so. Sure, losing a drone isn’t as bad as losing a pilot, but losing a multi-million-dollar aircraft still sucks.
There’s also the fact that you can’t jam the hardwired communications between a cockpit and the control surfaces and weapons systems nearly as easily as you can cut off radio signals between an aircraft and a remote piloting station. Modern combat involves Electronic Warfare (EW) to interfere with C3 (Command/Control/Communications) to a far greater extent than it did back when binoculars, flags, and trumpets were the pinnacle of relevant technology.
Basically, drones are useless without at least a dog-brain level of autonomy that can operate within acceptable parameters when cut off from communications. A human pilot can operate with far better efficiency and effectiveness than a milspec Arduino running a few shell scripts.
Drones are typically only used against opposition that lacks the EW capabilities to counter them. A few rebels with a case of Stinger missiles is within their capabilities, but going against opposition that has the sophistication and resources to handle 21st-century technology makes drones risky at best. And we lack the AI technology to match what a human with a jammed radio can do, so the intolerance to massive G-forces is an acceptable compromise.
Than may change once we reach Skynet levels of AI technology, but if you read the Bolo series or watch the Terminator movies, you will get a bit of insight as to why we’re a bit leery of that. Small spoiler; one Bolo tank was sold to a planetary government that told to protect their people. Instead of engaging the enemy as intended, it burrowed underground. It turns out that there was a seismic anomaly that threatened to destroy the settlement that housed most humans on the planet, so it was actually fulfilling it’s programming. There’s also conflicts caused by human nature that would inhibit allowing AIs the degree of autonomy required for combat effectiveness.
TL:DR – It’s a combination of lacking the technology and lacking trust in that technology once we achieve it.
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