On 14 Dec 2003 22:11:39 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

5th Generation (???) - MiG 1.42, Su-30 series or FA/22, F-35

Fourth.

Hmmm, okay Mary what would a 5th Generation fighter be? They are using that
term fairly regularly when discussing the Su-30 family.

I thought they were calling it the four-and-a-half-th generation or
fourth-generation plus. I know that some third-generation fighters
were touted as really being "half a generation more advanced"
(although not for any good reason that I remember).

Maybe they won't have guns.

To be honest, I don't know what's left in this evolutionary sequence.
Maybe remotely piloted? Having the pilot literally plug in the
airplane, with some sort of "think it, fly it" or "think it, fire it"
system? Artificial intelligence, with the pilot as supervisor? None
of these sound very practical to me. Maybe the piloted fighter with
the flock of "assistant" semi-autonomous vehicles.

I can also remember hearing people advocate the great simplification
of the all-up modern fighter to being a weapons carrier only. That
is, the AAMs would have all the integration and avionics and stuff and
these smart missiles would be carried and launched from relatively
unsophisticated (and inexpensive) platform aircraft.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer