What role does the jet have to fulfill? Fight off enemy planes in an invasion? If it’s the US that invades you wouldn’t want US tech, but it doesn’t really matter, the US would win. Russia invading? At this point they’re down to kites and helium balloons, right?
If it’s to fulfill a role within NATO, a Gripen is probably just as good as an F-35, because any enemy of NATO’s will almost certainly be many generations behind. China wouldn’t be, but neither Canada directly nor NATO is likely to get into a direct fighting war with China. Only maybe if Canada wanted to help defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression could that possibly happen. But, because Taiwan’s a small island, Canada’s Navy would probably be the main force involved.
In a few decades, things might already have changed. Missiles and drones might have made fighter jets essentially obsolete. So, it doesn’t make too much sense to buy something that’s massively expensive just because it’s the most up-to-date thing right now.
Likely there will be no such thing as a 6th gen fighter jet. The pilot will be replaced by AI, so the next gen will have completely different requirements.
I don’t think the “pilot will be replaced by AI”. I think there will just be drones that look nothing like fighter jets. Some might have a certain amount of autonomy, which is vaguely similar to “AI”. Others will be controlled remotely. Still others will probably be a mix, like a swarm that’s human-controlled but where the individual drones in the swarm are somewhat autonomous.
There’s no way remote-controlled drones are going to be top-shelf items. Even now, comm interference pretty much prohibits the use of remote-controlled drones in any scenario which involves actual armies rather than shepherds with AKs. And beyond that, in a real war satellite constellations will go down real fast.
I don’t think we know what the next war is going to be like. Yes, radio interference is a major challenge with the current generation, but there are already partial work-arounds like fiber.
Yeah, it’s unlikely that the next generation will be 100% remote controlled with no local autonomy because that requires a high bandwidth. But systems with a moderate amount of autonomy might be fine.
What role does the jet have to fulfill? Fight off enemy planes in an invasion? If it’s the US that invades you wouldn’t want US tech, but it doesn’t really matter, the US would win. Russia invading? At this point they’re down to kites and helium balloons, right?
If it’s to fulfill a role within NATO, a Gripen is probably just as good as an F-35, because any enemy of NATO’s will almost certainly be many generations behind. China wouldn’t be, but neither Canada directly nor NATO is likely to get into a direct fighting war with China. Only maybe if Canada wanted to help defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression could that possibly happen. But, because Taiwan’s a small island, Canada’s Navy would probably be the main force involved.
In a few decades, things might already have changed. Missiles and drones might have made fighter jets essentially obsolete. So, it doesn’t make too much sense to buy something that’s massively expensive just because it’s the most up-to-date thing right now.
Likely there will be no such thing as a 6th gen fighter jet. The pilot will be replaced by AI, so the next gen will have completely different requirements.
I don’t think the “pilot will be replaced by AI”. I think there will just be drones that look nothing like fighter jets. Some might have a certain amount of autonomy, which is vaguely similar to “AI”. Others will be controlled remotely. Still others will probably be a mix, like a swarm that’s human-controlled but where the individual drones in the swarm are somewhat autonomous.
There’s no way remote-controlled drones are going to be top-shelf items. Even now, comm interference pretty much prohibits the use of remote-controlled drones in any scenario which involves actual armies rather than shepherds with AKs. And beyond that, in a real war satellite constellations will go down real fast.
I don’t think we know what the next war is going to be like. Yes, radio interference is a major challenge with the current generation, but there are already partial work-arounds like fiber.
Yeah, it’s unlikely that the next generation will be 100% remote controlled with no local autonomy because that requires a high bandwidth. But systems with a moderate amount of autonomy might be fine.
Fighter jets running on fiber?