On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 22:53:28 GMT, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:05:44 +1100, John Cook
wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:30:34 -0600, "t_mark" wrote:


Lowest "official" number I've heard is 276.



I imagine we won't hear much of this a few years down the line when
UCAV's are 'trouncing' the rest.

It will be a while before UCAVs are doing air to air.




Cheers

You know, that's always puzzled me-- I recall reading in the 1980's
that they thought Air to Air UCAV's might actually beat CAS versions,
due to the problems of picking targets out of the ground, IFF, etc.
On the other hand, Air to Air could be done by selecting a section of
air and declaring anything in it hostile, giving the UCAV's free
range.

What changed? I'm assuming that at least part of it is the fact
that unlike the 1980's we're not talking all out war, so it's very
likely that even "war" zones may have to worry about civilian air
traffic and nobody wants a repeat of the Iranian shoot down (although
that wasn't a UCAV).