New HAL warfighting system removes need to send pilots into enemy airspace

Indian air power planners, however, have not entirely embraced this belief in autonomous warfare

Air power theorists have for some years broadly ag­reed that the days of manned aircraft are over, since too much planning, equipment and survival syst­ems are needed to protect human crewmembers. Around the turn of the century, it was believed that the current, fif­th generation of manned fighters — America’s F-35 joint st­r­ike fighter; the Russian Sukhoi-35; the Chinese J-31 Shen­yang and F-20 Chengdu and India’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) — would be followed by unman­ned drones that would be remotely directed to their targets, where their weapon-loads would be autonomously released.

Indian air power planners, however, have not