Unmanned aircraft have yet to fulfill their initial promise of greater efficiency, according to Tom Clancy, CTO and vice president of Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation. At ASC16, Clancy said “unmanned systems take more people to operate than manned systems.” So, while UAVs have certainly reduced risk to personnel by removing them from the battle space, the next challenge to solve is “how can we deliver on lower cost” by having “more robots do the work of less people,” Clancy said.
As with previous stealth aircraft unveilings, the Air Force’s imagery of the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter has been doctored to keep adversaries guessing about its true shaping and design philosophy.