Twilight of the Fighter Pilot

That frail, slow-moving mechanism, the human fighter pilot, is becoming obsolete. At the flashing speeds of the latest fighter planes, his senses cannot absorb and his brain cannot process the information that is necessary to shoot down an enemy. It is U.S. Air Force doctrine (and presumably Russian doctrine too) that, sooner or later, human pilots must be supplanted by electronic senses and brains that can do a faster, better job.

A step toward this goal is the "semiautomatic interceptor" such as the Lockheed Starfire (F-94C) and the North American F-86D, which airmen call the "Dog." Both are in limited production (the Starfire was announced this week), but neither is in tactical operation.

Ring of Rockets. Neither plane is exactly new. The Starfire is a refinement of the F-94; the Dog an improved Sabre jet with its nose redesigned to house additional radar equipment. Neither plane carries guns, only rockets. The Starfire's twenty-four 2.75-in. rockets are tucked away in a ring around its blunt, black, radar-packed nose. In normal flight they are covered by faired-in doors. An instant before the rockets are fired, the doors snap open. They snap shut again in a flash.

Unlike most fast new jets, the Starfire (over 600 m.p.h.) has straight instead of swept-back wings. Sweepback is meant to minimize the dangerous effects of shock waves at high speed. The same result can be accomplished by making the wings much thinner--a difficult job because thin wings tend to be weak and flexible. Lockheed gets around the obstacle by chewing large parts of the wing--skin, stiffeners, etc.--out of heavy slabs of aluminum.

North American's Dog is a single-seater, but the Starfire carries both a pilot and a radar operator. Some Air Force authorities think that, even with a troop of electronic assistants, there is too much concentrated work on a fast interceptor for one man to handle.

Both planes are loaded with electronics; the Starfire carries 1,200 Ibs. of the intricate stuff, the Dog, more than 1,000 Ibs. Both planes work about the same way. When ordered into the air, they are taken off by their pilots and, coached by ground radars, are flown toward the target: an approaching enemy bomber. At some stage in the proceedings, the planes' electronic senses and brains take over the flying job. Their radar eyes watch the target. Their electronic computers analyze the target's course and tell an automatic pilot where to steer the plane. The system is fast enough to follow all the evasive writhings of the hunted bomber. A radar sight picks the correct instant to fire the rockets.

Automatic Climax. The final climax, when the two planes may be closing at 1,000 m.p.h., is much too fast for a human pilot. He rides passively, hoping for the best. After the burst of fire, he takes a deep breath (if he is still alive) and guides his brainy airplane back to its base.

Experts believe that these semi-automatic interceptors are an interim type. The final step will take the Air Force to completely automatic models. They will take off by themselves and follow radio guidance to the target area. Their own radars will pick up the target, fire the rockets or air-to-air homing missiles. Then they will return to base, steered and landed by human coaches on the ground.

The completely automatic interceptor may not be far away. In the near future, whole formations of specially equipped standard fighters may take off, maneuver together high in the air, and land untouched by human hands. Special planes for this kind of operation are well advanced.

Such a plane will be a serious rival to the ground-to-air guided missile. With no pilot (and therefore no pressurizing, cooling, ejection seats, visual instruments, etc.), it will be smaller and probably cheaper than a piloted interceptor and it should climb faster and fly farther.

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