Top Gun: Maverick would not be much of a film if the planes hadn’t had pilots, but many believe that designing a next-generation aircraft that requires a pilot would be a huge, costly error. More and more manned planes are replaced by remotely piloted aircraft every year, and with the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence, by the time the new, manned fighter will be in production, it will be redundant. The change to unmanned fighter jets is thought to be not only beneficial, but necessary to maintain aerial superiority over any enemy. These people base such a controversial statement on the historic patterns in automation and aerospace engineering, assuming these trends will continue into the future, jeopardising the fighter pilot.
 
Even with today’s technology, Boeing’s QF-16 programme is able to convert old retired F-16 Fighting Falcons into drones capable of flying a pre-set route without a pilot either in the plane or even operating it remotely. In 2020, 32 of these autonomous planes were used as targets in weapons testing over the Gulf of Mexico, as a way of testing SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) against actual aircraft. QF-16s could also be used to fly a decoy route, drawing enemy attention away from a fighter in stealth mode. This trick would distract the enemy’s air defences, resulting in a higher completion rate of the manned aircraft’s objective.
 
Already the F-16 utilises fly-by-wire, a system by which the pilot does not have to physically battle with the plane to turn, as an electronic signal is taken from the controls instead. As this technology is already in place, the only necessary hardware change to fully automate the flying process would be to create a signal from an imaginary pilot using Artificial Intelligence.
 
Such advances lead many to believe that it is as inevitable for AI systems to be able to outperform and outmanoeuvre real pilots, as planes equipped with an AI will be able to make turns that would be impossible for a human because of the G-force involved. A person can at most sustain 9g’s only for a few seconds, after extensive and costly training, and it is impossible to train one’s body to sustain multiple negative g’s. Conversely, the actual materials of the jets can sustain well past the forces which would kill a human, not to mention the inability of a computer to be subjected to G-LOC (g-force induced Loss of Consciousness) which can be fatal when flying at low altitude.
 
Moreover, with no human involved, fighters would also be a lot cheaper, as they would not require the many safety systems and redundancies which are present to keep a pilot safe. No ejection system or pressurisation system would be needed, to name only two of the various pieces of equipment which are there solely to cater for the needs of a pilot. The overall cost of manufacturing a fighter jet would be dramatically reduced.  Boeing’s Valkyrie, an unmanned hypersonic jet designed to accompany manned fighters and relay vital information to the pilot, costs only $3 million each, a small fraction of the F-35’s $82 million price tag.
 
However, thus far, due to the innumerable variables which have to be processed simultaneously and instantly, no nation has been able to develop a drone platform which is able to outperform a manned aircraft. Computer systems aren’t able to mimic the decision making of pilots, nor is it possible to provide any remote operator with the same level of situational awareness that a pilot has in the cockpit. Another problem that plagues the idea of a remotely operated jet is the issue of establishing a secure direct line of communication between the pilot and the drone.
 
In order for a drone to be practically useful, it must have a constant link to the operator. If the signal is lost, the drone may either fall out of the sky, land autonomously or simply return to its base. Obviously, that prevents the drone being of use in supporting soldiers who are actively engaged in a firefight, one of the many invaluable roles of the RAF during recent wars. 
 
Broader, ethical questions are invariably raised by the concept of autonomous warfare. Even if it would be beneficial to do so, should we, as members of the human race, be willing to arm fully autonomous drones to take a life? We may have the capability to create these drones that can operate without a pilot but some would argue that it is unethical to program a drone to exterminate villages and towns. There are also concerns that there will be significant increase in the scale and frequency of conflicts once a decision to go to war involves simply sending a few pieces of technology, a decision that might be thought to involve less heart-searching than sending the nation’s young pilots into a conflict from which they may not return.
 
On the other hand, many see that as the principal benefit: with the elimination of the need for pilots, there can be no casualties from sending fighter jets into dangerous hostile air space to assist soldiers on the front line, aside from the potential loss of military technology. This will result in fewer people needing to give their life in battle for a war to be successful, sparing more lives for the nation utilising these pilotless jets, both in terms of the lack of pilots in dangerous airspace and soldiers on the ground who need aerial support to ensure their survival in the field.
 
For the last twelve years, senior members of the RAF were claiming that we had built the final generation of fighter jets, yet currently BAE, among other companies, are working on Tempest, a new sixth-generation fighter jet for service in 2035, a good 25 years after the final manned jet was supposed to have been built according to their estimates, indicating that the future of manned aviation is as safe as it can ever can be in this technologically advanced world. There are fully autonomous drones in operation at the moment, however they are designed to work in tandem with a pilot, as opposed to replacing one, and many cannot imagine that will ever change within our lifetime.