The Cold War perception of space travel as being very human-oriented with man conquering Mars to build the Capitalist or Communist cities of tomorrow has been completely replaced by the reality that drones are much better suited for space exploration than humans. When it comes to military aviation the situation is similar. The strongest and weakest point of any pilot is his brain, which cannot stand the massive gravitational forces that ultra-modern fighter jets are capable of creating. So it is no surprise that at some point the US, Russia and China will unveil a drone big enough and capable enough to replace any current generation bombers and fighters removing the limitations of the human body’s weakness to big gravity from military aviation. And, as of a few days ago the Russians did just that.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation just released video to the public of a test of their new massive pilotless aircraft called “The Hunter”. This demonstration was conducted while the craft was receiving signals from a human pilot on land, but the Ministry claims they will soon be able to show off its fully-automated capabilities.
The Hunter is a big beast, the largest military “drone” ever produced if it gets put into production, weighing in at 20 metric tons giving it the ability to carry any payload that any other Russian fighter jet can in theory.
The natural media reaction to this unveiling will surely be that of “Russian Aggression” (how dare you snow slaves produce anything other than oil) or “Cold War 2.0” is happening right now (we are all possibly doomed). The latter option is far more relevant and interesting.
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