6th-Generation Fighter Super Bowl Ad (Video!)

If this Northrop Grumman ad is any indication, we haven’t seen the last of the piloted fighter jet. The defense giant is best known for its long line of flying wings, including the iconic B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and the yet-to-be-unveiled Long Range Strike Bomber. Their new 30-second clip doesn’t show us any new details about that bomber, which remains under wraps in ads even after winning a major Air Force contract. Instead, it gives us a trio of arrow-head-shaped grey wedges, all stealthy jet fighters with room for human pilots on board.

While this commercial just shows off concept art, the cockpit on the potential 6th-generation fighter are clearly visible. Because it takes decades to go from fighter concept to fighter in service, DARPA’s already looking at the future generations. It’s way too soon to say whether the fighter that eventually succeeds the F-35 will have a human in the cockpit, but at the very least, Northrop Grumman thinks it’s important enough to include it as a selling point.

http://www.popsci.com/northrop-grumm...ration-fighter

America, **** yeah! Tax money well spent!?

Wouldn't someone in the cockpit always be better than remote control in terms of precision flight? Latency and whatnot.

The BBC website recently published an interesting article about the history of aircraft designs based on the "flying wing" concept.

The WW2 flying wing decades ahead of its time

... the Horten Ho 229 [...] was so far ahead of its time that its aerodynamic secrets are still not completely understood. In fact, there’s a chief scientist at Nasa still working to discover just how its creators managed to overcome the considerable aerodynamic challenges that should have made it unflyable.

A sign that since people don't have money to spend the only people big companies have to sell are our members of Congress, the TV is now a lobbying front, like those stupid GE commercials, it's not like they serve a purpose to sell anything to normal consumers, not like simple cereal commercials sell you cereal or shampoo sells shampoo, soda commercial sells soda and so on, they just have to sell those who control our debt spending tax dollars of where to send their Federal Reserve appropriations the average Joe with no disposable income will be obligated to pay back the fixed corporate welfare system.

Anyhow, our F22 and F35 programs were fucking jokes. They don't hold up against Russian technology, they're outperformed by their decades old predecessors, they're vastly more expensive both to build and to maintain. This is what the military industrial complex has become, complacent with substandard technology because the right people have been lining the pockets of politicians to stay in power, rather than a competitive defense contracting system where the contractors with the best products for the best price get the contract.

AI.

Really cool, but a waste of money considering how much we've already spent on the F-35's.