Manned aircraft and drones as wingmen will be included in the sixth-generation combat aviation group. This was stated by Evgeny Fedosov, Scientific Director of the State Research Institute of Aviation Systems (GosNIIAS).
According to him, the drone corresponds to aircraft in terms of size and flight speed. It can perform tasks within the group. For example, UAVs can attack targets in the near zone, and aircraft can attack targets in the far zone, in order not to expose the crew to risk.
Fedosov stressed that in the future, despite the development of unmanned systems, manned aviation will not disappear. It is impossible to replace a pilot with a machine, because it does not have intuition, he explained.
I am convinced that it is impossible to exclude a person from a combat operation
Perhaps where it is necessary to perform billions of operations per second, machines outperform humans. But only a pilot can make a decision in a hopeless situation, the representative of GosNIIAS summed up.
Currently, engineers and the military are thinking about the concept of a sixth-generation aircraft. According to Fedosov's assessment, it may appear by 2050. At the same time, the new aircraft should not be heavier, and, accordingly, more expensive than their predecessors.