1. Demand
The problem isn't just that fighters are mannedmanned. It's also the ideaconcept of aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat that's getting less relevant.
Does this mean fighters are dead? Not yet. If two superpowers clash over an island chain, distant enough from either of them, they might not have the same ability to "castle" behind air defenses. It's just that this scenario is a small subset of possibilities, and most fighting happens over land.
2. Substitutes
When one needs to penetrate layered theater air defenses, the loss rate for fighters gets toocan get as high as 30-50%. It was such in WWII, it gets back there with S-400 or Patriot present. This means a reusable manned platform isn't perfect for deep penetration.
Drones are harder to spot, flying low and slow. Missiles can fly hypersonicfly hypersonic (due to physics,manned fighters manned fighters can'taren't effective there), making them harder to kill.
Neither incur PR costs or give the opponent prisoners to interrogate or trade. This is the advantage is shared by remote-controlled fighters. But the other two - the ability to evade interception, or to easily replace losses - aren't. Fighters are slow to replace not just because of the complexity, but also because they're built to be flown, not stockpiled like missiles.
Stealth is the one counter manned fighters still have to extend their life. But it's not perfect, it's expensive to achieve and maintain, there are counter-stealth technologies and methods. Theater air defenses are being designed to exploit these weaknesses. There's still some cat-and-mouse to be played, but expendable drones and missiles are a safer bet.
3. Complexity
For a remotely piloted combat drone, or UCAV, copying the design of a jet fighter form isn't optimal. It's pays too muchFighters pay a lot in weight, fuel consumption, and maintenance costs for supersonic flight, high thrust:weight, and 9g maneuvers, all unnecessary for a drone.
Practical UCAV are built as simple and efficient subsonic stealthy platforms, giving them range and stealthwithout refueling. For air-toStarting with the MQ-air1, they cancould carry a fire-and-forget missile for air-to-air. It's not as good as a fighter, but the drones are much cheaper, and that's thatwith good enough missiles, they can hit bombers or deter fighters.
Converting old fighters to drones can be cheap at first, but maintaining them isn'ttheir maintenance and overhead aren't. Air wings comprise 30-50 men per fighter, which won't go down much for the same plane, just remotely piloted. That's why QF-16s are used as disposable targets and MQ-1/MQ-9s as reusable combat vehicles, not the other way around. Drones are built for low maintenance.
Finally, keep4. Has it passed?
Keep in mind that Elon Musk is in the tech business, which does give him a bias for unmanned systems. AsHe builds them, after all. But as spectacular as military tech evolution has been, nothing has replaced boots on the ground for the long game yet.
Manned fighters give the pilot better view of their surroundings, better feel for the aircraft, skin in the game. They'll remain relevant for patrolling non-hostile skies and managing unclear rules of engagement.
But as to how far they'll advance beyond F-35, FC-31 and Su-75 - that's less clear. I expect one more generation for sure. The real question is if it will go up in performance (F-22, J-20, Su-57 successors, with a certain risk), or be succeeded by even lighter aircraft, passing the "bomb truck" job to drones. China probably will follow up on the J-20, but Russia has its hands full, and the US is focusing on strike and unmanned platforms now, without any public plans for a Raptor follow-up.
