From The Danger Room:
Is the day of the hot-shot fighter jock nearly done?
An Air Force study, released without much fanfare on Wednesday, suggests that tomorrow’s dogfighers might not have pilots in the cockpit. The Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Plan. which sketches out possible drone development through the year 2047, comes with plenty of qualifiers. But it envisions a radical future. In an acronym-dense 82 pages, the Air Force explains how ever-larger and more sophisticated flying robots could eventually replace every type of manned aircraft in its inventory — everything from speedy, air-to-air fighters to lumbering bombers and tankers.
Read more ....
My Comment: Some have been speculating that after the production of the F-35, there will no longer be a manned fighter plane. The same has also been said for bombers and aircraft like the AWACS.
My interpretation of all of these developments, is that we are at the beginning phase of a revolution in aviation technology and applications. What is in the skies today is impressive, but what will be in the skies 20 to 30 years from now will be revolutionary.