With modern missile technology one could argue that fighter jets are primarily drone launch vehicles. Sure the drone explodes instead of coming back, but still. Flies and navigates on its own, launched in air from a mothership …
Soon they’ll start landing back too I’m sure. Reconnaissance drones launched from a slower aircraft come to mind as a good use case. Or as command and control platforms for swarms of drones doing the work.
The recovery thing could potentially resolve another K-13/AIM-9B incident, but I'm not sure this will be worthwhile. If you have fuel to return you have fuel to chase the target longer and to go faster. Personally I only see recovery as a useful feature if your weapons are really expensive or you want to create air mines. Which the latter is really a terrifying thought. It wouldn't be hard to have a bunch of drones with explosives create a screen/wall and take out anything that comes close enough. Returning things with explosives on it is also rather dangerous. You arm them when sending them out and if there's a bug they may still be armed when returning.
Surely there’s going to eventually be drones that don’t go boom? Those would be nice to retrieve
A wall of floating drones that go boom if you come too close sounds like a terrifying likely future. Especially if they’re too small to properly show up on radar
A wall of floating drones isn't a feasible concept. Small drones have an endurance measured in minutes. And they have an operating ceiling far lower than most manned aircraft.
Lighter-than-air drones require significant power to maintain position in even a slight wind. They have very limited payload and can't carry much in the way of sensors. It's just completely unrealistic with current technology.
With modern missile technology one could argue that fighter jets are primarily drone launch vehicles. Sure the drone explodes instead of coming back, but still. Flies and navigates on its own, launched in air from a mothership …
Soon they’ll start landing back too I’m sure. Reconnaissance drones launched from a slower aircraft come to mind as a good use case. Or as command and control platforms for swarms of drones doing the work.