China Flanker Thread II

Status
Not open for further replies.
Deino

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Do we have an idea, where this J-16 was spotted? At SAC, at the CFTE, at a regular PLAAF unit??
 
Last edited:
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
Maybe they are going the F-15X route and dispensing with the second pilot all together. Pilot could use it to store luggage or something. :)
Click to expand...

The F-15EX are all twin seaters with the second seat fully functional and able to accommodate a copilot/WSO if they wish. But the USAF will be flying their F-15EXs mostly with only one pilot.
They chose to proceed with F-15EX as a twin seat aircraft because the additional time and money to change the aircraft to a single seat aircraft wasn't worth it and because having the second available seat could be useful for future missions.


lcloo said:
Why there is no ejection seat at the back? My speculation is that since there is no need for a second pilot (who is replaced by the AI smart-win ), why not just discard the dead weight.

But why not use a single seat J11A as test bed? Integration of the new AI Smart-Win with the most updated avionics on J16 would be much preferred than the older avionics on J-11A. Also using an existing serial production J16 is cheaper than a new purpose built single seat variant of J16.

智胜 = Smart Win.
Click to expand...

In the case of this particular J-16 airframe, I don't see any indication to suggest the cockpit for the second pilot/WSO at the back has been dispensed with -- we can see that the small HUD for the second pilot/WSO is still there, and the fact we are unable to see the ejection seat from that side angle means nothing because the ejection seat on the Su-30MKK/J-16 platform in general is not visible from the side with the canopy down.
If it is some sort of "AI enabled testbed," I personally wouldn't be surprised if the full copilot/WSO cockpit is all still there, even if it is for the purposes of just being a testbed.


After all, for initial testing of AI applications for combat aircraft it makes sense to develop it to duplicate the duties of a copilot/WSO initially, but that is arguably the most basic application of a fighter based AI.

One doesn't need to much imagination to consider how a single fighter aircraft in future could have the AI equivalent of a full AEW&C or ELINT aircraft crew's worth of autonomous intelligences helping the manned crew to automate tasks and especially to sift through targets, emissions and signals, to present to the manned crew the information to make tactical decisions.

In such a context, the number of human beings who will remain the ones to still make the decisions, will be the rate limiting factor for how much one aircraft can do even if the same aircraft has a very potent combat intelligence (or combat intelligences) augmenting it.
 
siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Low altitude sea skimming flight.

bVf7ri8.gif


0vMrWLf.gif
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top