Tiffany Kaiser, the Science reporter for the DailyTech blog, recently interviewed retired Israeli Major General Eitan Eliyahu on the likelihood that the world’s major air forces will continue the shift toward unmanned drones:

“We pilots are the decision makers … and the claim to fame of fighter pilots are dogfights.  So in the future, part of the process of replacing jet fighters with UAVs will be the ability to start dogfights between drones,” said Eliyahu.

According to Eliyahu, air forces are largely trading-in expensive fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, which will save on life-cycle and training costs.  However, he believes UAVs cannot deter enemies well enough yet.

“UAVs will not contribute enough deterrence to prevent war,” said Eliyahu.  “When the F-35 is operational in Israel, it will have a dramatic effect on deterring our enemies.  So even if we have hundreds of UAVs, it won’t impact the balance of power as much as a single squadron of F-35s.”

He added that UAVs are also more susceptible to cyber attacks because they run on networked control.

Right, don’t think we will see a UAV winning the Navy’s Top Gun competition anytime soon.  Bet they’re working on it, ‘though.