Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#131

Post by b112 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 8:02 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #123

b112 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envision them all gone seconds into any large scale war. The G forces are another thing. I wonder why they aren't stsrting wth missle platforms instead. Sure, winged flight has uses, but taking a missle platform, adding small munitions instead of a big bang?

I'm not sure about this. Space is big and these satellite constellations are getting very large, with lots of redundancy. I know I'm sort of arguing against my previous point, but bear with me for a sec. You'd need an anti-satellite system that either destroys them kinetically (accepting the cost of the debris field) or one that breaks them electronically (an EMP or another device that defeats them electronically). T…

Interesting point re: satellites, I'd say the best tactic here is to presume all gone immediately. Eg, from a planning perspective. The reality may be that the war may need to stretch out a bit, before action is taken.

Of course any planned action would likely try to strike first, by some means.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#132

Post by generic92034 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

eszed wrote: post #128

generic92034 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expect drones to replace civil passenger aircraft any time soon?

I think GP's point is more relevant than your question implies. The vast majority of civilian flights could be flown entirely autonomously right now. (I'm not close enough to the aviation industry to make a confident guess, but +90% wouldn't surprise me.) Humans are there to take (decision or control) over when something goes off the happy path - in fact, pilots are encouraged / required to hand-fly landings that cou…

That is why I was talking about civil aircraft. With the waiting list for those aircraft Airbus can stay relevant for a very long time.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#133

Post by rkomorn » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

eszed wrote: post #128

generic92034 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expect drones to replace civil passenger aircraft any time soon?

I think GP's point is more relevant than your question implies. The vast majority of civilian flights could be flown entirely autonomously right now. (I'm not close enough to the aviation industry to make a confident guess, but +90% wouldn't surprise me.) Humans are there to take (decision or control) over when something goes off the happy path - in fact, pilots are encouraged / required to hand-fly landings that cou…

> The vast majority of civilian flights could be flown entirely autonomously right now.

This is extremely dependent on your definition of "autonomously" because at the moment they are not at all approaching autonomy.

At best, they'd be automatic, in the most rote way.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#134

Post by nradov » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 12:55 AM UTC

esseph wrote: post #130

nradov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't been paying attention. We are at least 47 years into AI kill chains. https://www.vp4association.com/aircraft-information-2/32-2/m...

Those don't self launch. I'm talking about systems that classify thousands of targets at once and can self-launch. Computerized kill chain.

Those self launch. Did you even read the article?

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#135

Post by esseph » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 8:21 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #134

esseph wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those don't self launch. I'm talking about systems that classify thousands of targets at once and can self-launch. Computerized kill chain.

Those self launch. Did you even read the article?

I understand the point you are trying to make here.

But to be very clear, the mine still has to be placed. What's happening now is that step is also automated, and may be automated by a system controlling many other weapons at the same time, across land/sea/air.

It's not remotely the same thing in terms of the scope and scale of what is being done with the networked weapon systems.

Maybe if you tied several hundred of them together with different weapon effects, sensors and capabilities operating across thousands of km at once you would start to get close.

I'm talking about weapon systems that know what color clothes the target is wearing and where his kids go to school.

You know the statement that the "network is the computer"?

Same applies here. We've connected sensors and weapon systems and LLMs together with data sources.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#136

Post by eszed » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

rkomorn wrote: post #133

eszed wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP's point is more relevant than your question implies. The vast majority of civilian flights could be flown entirely autonomously right now. (I'm not close enough to the aviation industry to make a confident guess, but +90% wouldn't surprise me.) Humans are there to take (decision or control) over when something goes off the happy path - in fact, pilots are encouraged / required to hand-fly landings that cou…

> The vast majority of civilian flights could be flown entirely autonomously right now. This is extremely dependent on your definition of "autonomously" because at the moment they are not at all approaching autonomy. At best, they'd be automatic, in the most rote way.

That's true. It'd be more accurate to say that the planes are capable, but that a lot about how the air transport system is organized would have to change to take full advantage of that - which we don't want/need to do, because an "automatic" system is too brittle, so we'd want skilled pilots on board, anyway.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#137

Post by remarkEon » Thu, Mar 19, 2026, 7:50 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #131

remarkEon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about this. Space is big and these satellite constellations are getting very large, with lots of redundancy. I know I'm sort of arguing against my previous point, but bear with me for a sec. You'd need an anti-satellite system that either destroys them kinetically (accepting the cost of the debris field) or one that breaks them electronically (an EMP or another device that defeats them electronically). T…

Interesting point re: satellites, I'd say the best tactic here is to presume all gone immediately. Eg, from a planning perspective. The reality may be that the war may need to stretch out a bit, before action is taken. Of course any planned action would likely try to strike first, by some means.

If I look back on how the Ukraine War progressed, it's a little more nuanced than that. Basically, your advanced weapons, of which supply is limited or constrained in some manner, are all on the clock and have an unknown expiration date. This means that your plans need to assume this, and it makes sense at the strategic level to try to take time off of the enemy's clock, if that makes sense.

In practice I think this would look something like immediate launch of satellite interceptor spacecraft after a formal war kicks off, so the clock in this case is probably measured in days. If we already have these kinds of interceptors, and I think there's good reason to believe that the Americans have at least a few, then the clock probably has only 48-72 hours after launch on it before the enemy satellite network starts to see noticeable degradation. Returning this point to the original comment of mine in this thread, you would likely have only a few days to a week where you could continuously "pilot" these kinds of aircraft with a human operator before you'd need a fully autonomous system to at least supplement if not fully replace decision-making. Hope that makes sense, first time I've actually thought through how I would plan this if I was doing so in real life. I'm making a ton of assumptions here ... one of which is that the Americans, in this hypothetical, would have a highly accurate map of enemy satellite networks and their orbits (there's good reason to think this is true). Another is that the interceptor spacecraft are a) available (defined as either already in orbit or able to be quickly mated with a launch rocket), b) numerous enough that they can make an impact on a time horizon that matters, and c) that the enemy lacks the means to either intercept the interceptor spacecraft or maneuver their own satellites to make the interception itself difficult (or impossible, if you get the interceptor to burn enough DV that it can't continue mission).