alt Hacker NewsWhat's crazy is there's lots of videos of Ukranians shooting drones from open-cockpit propeller planes that barely cost more than the drones!
I think in a serious drone war we would just have fleets of Cesnas flying around with a person hanging out the door with a shotgun lol.
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We're already moving beyond that to having interceptor drones which are cheaper and far more expendable.
It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Drones won’t stay ignorant of fighters shooting them down for long.
It’s a lot cheaper to give them a rear camera than to just tolerate them getting shot down indefinitely.
Then you send a swarm and fly a few sacrificial drones them into the airplanes.
> we would just have fleets of Cesnas flying around with a person hanging out the door with a shotgun lol.
Pfft, get real - Robinson R22 light broomstick choppers with muster pilots and crop dusting family STOLs make far more sense for their agility, ground hugging, and rough short take off / landing field capabilities.
That quibble aside, I can see things going that way, until flooding waves of many drones push up the human life cost past being able to respond.
Either way, they still need to be backed by some agile radar capabilities - variations of the E-7A Wedgetail design for ground and air to keep sensing on the hop.
In a serious drone war a neutral cargo ship off your coast will open hidden flaps and unleash 10K drones all at once erasing couple bases before they even know whats up.
In a serious war drone factories are getting bombed (by F-35s) and there is no need to handle a never-ending stream of drones. The war in Ukraine is special because neither side is capable of air supremacy.
Note that the original article doesn't say anywhere that F-35-like capability is not needed.
The Super Turcano is a prop-driven aircraft that's often suggested for this role.