The US Air Force must modernize. In any case, this is the message carried by Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and the department's two top military leaders before a Senate subcommittee on the military's 2025 budget on April 9. They say the United States cannot suffer further budget delays if it hopes to modernize and compete with China.
As the air branch of the United States Armed Forces stakes much of its future on a fleet of more than 1,000 autonomous drones, Frank Kendall said he plans to climb into an artificial intelligence-piloted fighter jet and take off with during the spring. He said he would enter the cockpit of one of the F-16s that the military has converted to test drone flights, to see for himself how the AI-controlled plane performs in the airs.
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Robotic wingmen supervised by a piloted plane
“I will be accompanied by a pilot who will observe, just like me, how the autonomous technology works,” Frank Kendall told members of the Senate Budgets Committee's defense committee. “I hope neither he nor I will need to fly the plane”. This test flight should make it possible to observe the technology underlying the future fleet.
This fleet was planned several years ago and the goal is now to have a piloted aircraft that is able to supervise several reactive AI-piloted drones, also called “loyal teammates”. No further details were given as to the size of these drones or the platform behind them.
Step up the fight against China
The stated objective, however, is clear: to respond to future wars, potentially including a conflict with China. The Middle Kingdom did not wait for the intensification of tensions between the two countries to modernize, particularly in terms of its capabilities to fight against access, because, as reported Associated Press.
“More sophisticated air defense systems make it risky to send manned crews too close. Drones could increase the service's ability to breach these defenses, and they are being considered to provide support in a variety of future missions such as monitoring or jamming”, specifies the press agency.
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Drones create a new kind of warfare
Used a few years ago in addition to aircraft carrying pilots, drones have become one of the main air support resources of the American army. With conflicts taking place in different parts of the globe, particularly in Ukraine and the Middle East, drones are widely used for surveillance and military intervention purposes.
In the case of UNITED STATES, the current goal is for each drone to cost between a quarter and a third of the current price of an F-35 fighter, or around $20 million per unit. The U.S. Air Force has requested $559 million in the 2025 budget to continue research and development of its future air system.
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