Air systems
ir power does not come cheap. The F-35 was supposed to save the US money by replacing a range of different fighters. It will cost the country an estimated $1.7trn through its operational lifetime – making it the most expensive weapon system ever built and an easy target for politicians, stealth design notwithstanding. In March 2021, Washington state representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, compared the programme to “throwing money down [a] rathole”, which wasn’t entirely fair. The F-35 may not be as agile as some of its predecessors, but none of those aircraft can match its ability to penetrate the modern air defence systems used by Russia and China. Admittedly, that would be more useful if F-35s were not so prone to getting stuck in hangars waiting for repairs or parts. On average, only 61% of the US fleet was available at any one time in 2021, well below the military’s desired 80% mission capable rate. “Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability?” Smith asked.
AI in the sky A
outmanoeuvre the F-35, the latter aircraft neither has to get close nor fight alone. Just days before Smith took aim at the “rathole”, the Royal Australian Air Force tested its first Boeing Loyal Wingman, later rebranded as the MQ-28 Ghost Bat – a relatively cheap unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed to work with and support its F-35s. It’s a match made in heaven – or at least optimised for contested skies. As Lockheed Martin puts it, pilots of fourth-generation fighters like its F-16 are sensor operators consumed with the job of maintaining situational awareness; F-35 pilots, equipped with a spectacular – and heavy – array of fused sensors and avionics systems, are battlespace commanders. Their first troops are now taking off to join them.
Made to be expendable Well, yes. For all the doom mongering about the fact that, close up and one-on-one, the 50-year-old F-16 can
“I think the technologies are there now where we can talk about a formation, if you will, of a manned aircraft controlling multiple unmanned aircraft,” said US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in January 2022. Networked with sufficiently advanced fighters and bombers, these drones can act as forward sensors, swarming decoys or weapons platforms while protecting pilots and their high-value planes. To Mark Gunzinger and Lukas Autenried at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, as is made clear in
Air systems
Air forces around the world are developing highly sophisticated drone systems intended to work alongside fi ghter jets in military operations. Using artifi cial intelligence to fl y independently or in support of manned aircraft while maintaining a safe distance between other jets, these ‘loyal wingmen’ look set to change the nature of aerial warfare. Isabel Ellis fi nds out more.
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
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Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Defence
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