The day of manned aircraft may soon be over
2 hours ago
Indian Air Force’s Rafale fighter jet lands during the first day of the Aero India 2021 Airshow at the Yelahanka Air Force Station in Bangalore. File/Agence France-Presse
Binay Kumar Singh,
Indo-Asian News Service
The Air Warfare Symposium, conducted by the US Air Force Association on February 27-28, may go down in history as an event where history was foretold. It was here, on the morning of February 28, 2020, that Elon Musk, the quintessential disruptor, set the cat among the pigeons. In a room overflowing with Air Force personnel, many fighter pilots among them, Musk famously predicted the end of the manned fighter aircraft. Much consternation followed, and copious amounts of newsprint was invested in the counter-narrative that flowed, mainly from the US Air Force and its veterans. Notably, much of the criticism of Musk’s proclamation was aimed at targeting him personally as a ‘head-line grabber’, rather than to disprove his assertion through solid logic and evidence. This is probably indicative of the fact that Musk’s prediction may hold more than a modicum of truth.