TECHNOLOGY

Where the machine stops needing us, and starts deciding for itself.

THE LAST PILOT

From the Wright Cyclone to the autonomous swarm: the end of the age of human flight.

For a century the pilot flew the aircraft with his brain, his training, his eyes, his nerve, and by the seat of his pants. That is over. The pilot is becoming the most expensive and least reliable component in the aircraft, and the swarm that will replace him never tires nor needs to come back home. This heralds the end of a century of human aviation, as told from a cockpit on its way to obsolescence.

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THE GHOST PROGRAMME

A plausible technical scenario, with a retrofit doctrine and the autonomous architecture that follows.

Take an existing F-35, strip out the pilot and every system built to keep him alive, and you do not get a lesser aircraft. You get the one the airframe was always designed for. This essay, based on open sources, establishes the engineering case for the conversion, and how quickly the manned fighter becomes the exception.

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