Replacing the F-15E

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Member for

17 years 9 months

Posts: 629


and then there's the biggest advantage any UCAV has over manned fighters: cost. the F-22 cost $60 billion to develop, $150 million to build. the F-35 is going towards $400 billion to develop, $150 million to build. a UCAV on the other hand can be developed for less than $1 billion, built for less than $50 million, but it'll match or beat the usefulness of any manned aircraft. combine them with other elements to make up for their flaws, like a lack of radar, and you get high performance at a much lower cost. and above all, that is the reason the UCAV will be superior to the F-35, cost versus performance

A UCAV that matches the exact performance and capabilities of a manned fighter would cost perhaps 5% less to develop and build. Any potential savings are realized by removing the weight of the cockpit, canopy, ejection seat and other life-support gear w/c totals around 5% of the total aircaft weight. On the other hand, you need even more complex and redundant systems since there is no pilot and these cost more.

Remember, in fairness, we want to compare apples vs. apples so its not fair to compare say a Predator vs. a F-16 even though both can drop bombs or fire missiles. If you built a UCAV with the exact capabilities and performance of a F-16, you've basicallybuilt a F-16 drone.. cost would be approximately the same.. no big savings really in terms of development and manufacture.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

Yes, but who is actually planning to develop such UCAVs? Current work is on stealthy subsonic UCAVs for strike, akin to a much cheaper F-117.

The drivers for them being unmanned are cost, stealthiness (removing the cockpit makes VLO easier), endurance (limited by the crew for AAR-capable fighters) & not having to put human beings in harms way.

Member for

13 years 9 months

Posts: 24

Bring back the F-111!:p