Lockheed Says F-35 Could Fly Pilotless

[Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081501288.html




Lockheed Martin Corp. has proposed an unmanned version of its Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35, which would make it the first full-scale fighter to operate without a pilot and signal the Bethesda weapons maker's push into the growing market for drone aircraft.

The idea has been in the works for two years, Lockheed Vice President Frank Mauro said at a briefing yesterday. He provided few details but said the plane could be built as an interchangeable hybrid -- manned by a pilot for some missions and operated remotely for others.

The Joint Strike Fighter, funded with help from several other countries, is meant to replace the F-16 as the workhorse fighter of the United States and its close allies. Less powerful than the F-22 Raptor that Lockheed developed to give the United States an advantage in air combat, the Joint Strike Fighter is still designed to travel at supersonic speed and carry up to 15,000 pounds of bombs and missiles.

Test flights of the F-35 are expected to begin later this year. The idea of a remote-control version of the plane has not been pitched to the Air Force, though it has been through the company's conceptual design phase, Lockheed officials said.

Air Force officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Yesterday's briefing marked a strategic turn for Lockheed, which for years has stayed publicly on the sidelines as the Pentagon increased its spending on unmanned systems.

Such competitors as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co. are entrenched in the market, with products such as Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk surveillance drone, which is deployed overseas.

Lockheed ceded the market in the late 1990s while it focused on winning the contract to build what many predict will be the Air Force's last manned fighter jet, the F-35. Lockheed then feared that the unmanned market could diminish demand for its more expensive fighter jets, analysts said.

"When you think about unmanned combat systems, I think about Boeing," said John E. Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org.

But in the past three to four years, Lockheed's aeronautics division has spent 30 to 40 percent of its internal research-and-development budget on unmanned systems, company officials said. That includes $21 million the company has spent on the Polecat, a prototype drone that Lockheed plans to test at 60,000 feet or above this year. At a briefing yesterday, the firm trumpeted a stable of unmanned systems that can run on the ground, hauling equipment and supplies for troops, and underwater, searching for submarines and mines. Some of the systems are still being developed and some are deployed in Iraq.

Much of the work is being done at Lockheed's research-and-development lab in California, known as the Skunk Works, where the U-2 spy plane was developed in secret in the 1950s.

Some of the company's investment "is playing catch-up for all those big dollars that the government has invested" in unmanned technology, and some is "leapfrogging" existing systems, Mauro said.

The Pentagon, looking to save money, has accelerated spending on unmanned systems since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This year, it allocated $2 billion for unmanned aircraft and millions more in the supplemental budget, compared with $363 million in 2001. The figure is projected to reach more than $3 billion by the end of the decade.

What has resulted is a hodgepodge of unmanned vehicles, such as small, bomb-seeking robots that can be carried in a backpack, and airplanes that provide surveillance for days at a time. The systems have become bigger and more expensive in recent years, such as the Predator, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., and the Global Hawk, which has a 134-foot wingspan, comparable to the Boeing 737.

"Lockheed is playing catch-up and acknowledging that unmanned vehicles is a trend that is not going to go away," said Loren B. Thompson Jr., a defense industry analyst and Lockheed consultant. "It's going to be hard to penetrate a market where competitors are already established."

"We're looking at picking it up when we get enough customer interest, and that's the way they want to go," Mauro said. "Right now we're focused on getting the manned version of the F-35 flying."

While some analysts called the idea improbable, it could be an acknowledgment that the Pentagon's initial plan to buy about 2,000 F-35s is now considered likely to change -- in part because of improved drone technology. The decision to propose an unmanned F-35 may anticipate the day when all military aircraft are pilotless, analysts said.

The F-35 program has run into problems, including a rising price that is expected to reach $276 billion, up from the original estimate of $201 billion.

"I think they would be crazy not be looking at this," Pike said. "It's a foregone conclusion that at some point in the F-35 production program that [the Air Force is] going to decide we're going to replace the rest with unmanned systems." It would be smart "if Lockheed can come in and say, 'We have a solution for this.' "

[-Tigger-]

bah.. any1 seen the movie stealth?..

wouldnt trust anything controlled by a computer with that amount of firepower.. and i dont like the idea of replacing humans! going to knock thousands out of jobs when it eventually happens

[Steve]

not worth it to save lives?

[-Tigger-]

gonna ruin thousands of lives by replacing the members of a countries airforce... ofcourse yeah, it'll save some, but computers crash, have bugs, do the wrong things.. in the hands of the wrong person, will bring disaster...

[Rampage.]

no one will loose jobs, the pilots are simply on the ground and control the drone from there...

[katana*GFR*]

These guys wouldnt be actual pilots anymore.. They get a course to learn how to fly with it and thats it... Thats the way it is for the current UAV's and for the new generation it wouldnt be else.

but still i dont believe man flown airplanes will be something of the past 1 day. When youre in the actual plane you see more then the guy behind a screen, and i think lots of stuff will be made simpler in the upcoming years, they now have multi million dollar systems that can be operated from far away, but whats the point when the enemy has a 10 dollar jammer?

Simple is the future i do believe, all those radio controlled stuff is easyer to disrupt then steering it.. And it costs a hell of a lot less money to jam it..

[Steve]

Originally posted by BB
gonna ruin thousands of lives by replacing the members of a countries airforce... ofcourse yeah, it'll save some, but computers crash, have bugs, do the wrong things.. in the hands of the wrong person, will bring disaster...

i don't think the airforce is just going to sack all of it's pilots, you might be reading too much into this.
saying about things in the wrong hands can be said for anything, like the US soldier who threw a grenade into a tent full of US soldiers because he was anti-american... or having George Bush incontrol of the world's most poerful army , being controlled by computer doesn't necesserily mean it will be abused to a greater extent, you wont just be able to plug a joystick into a PC anywhere in the world and nukz0r a country.

as for lightning strikes... welll i can't say anythign about that hehhe

(ps planes dont use Windows XP so things are a bit more stable hehhe )

[Sen]

Hah. Hacking into a high power aircraft from the comfort of your own computer sounds like an EXCHELLENT idea.

[the Medic™]

gosh how fun for the pilotes using a remote control to control it .. they might aswell go play battlefield 2 (yes a F35 is in the game and u can fly it)

*Sgt Maj Johnes.
:Allright Boys! today is the first day of your remote controll training.
Start of by clicking on the BF2 icon and join the Army Only Server.

When you are in the server respawn by the USS Carrier there you will find four F-35's that u can train on.

992 Airborne :
Sir Yessir!

992 Airborne :
Ah shit i lagged!

[Lakie]

Yeah the pilot intake will reduce, but i dont think theyd actually get rid of pilots, plus you have to take into account the extra jobs created in making the things, plus i bet it uses more manpower to maintain and keep track of in flight...

Though tbh ill be very supised if the Joint Strike Fighter get completed, been a bust up from the beginnning, a number of countries are not happy with the blowout and it wouldnt suprise if they drop it....

I dont see a huge problem with ai controlled planes, whats your really sacrificing is having a human there if something happens, cause these days with Autopilot, VOR/IFR, GPS and the heavily computerized weapons systems. When you consider tat the new A380 is capable of pilotless flights....

[Lucky]

Originally posted by the Medic™

992 Airborne :
Ah shit i lagged!

Lawl