That is mainly because aircraft are much more expendable than pilots and combat operations can now be flown remotely by pilots stationed thousands of miles away from hostile fronts. Analysts predict that within the next decade or two, nations without the resources to compete with the U.S. In the development of sophisticated piloted naval aircraft will be able to launch hundreds of inexpensive drones without regard for how many are lost in combat (Crosby, 2007; Elgin, 2009). Large numbers of unmanned drones with offensive and "suicidal" capabilities could easily overwhelm even the most sophisticated multiple hostile aircraft tracking abilities of the U.S. Navy's manned air superiority aircraft (Crosby, 2007).

Conclusion

On one hand, the apparent trend in contemporary military aviation foretells the obsolescence of some of the principal missions of U.S. naval aircraft. On the other hand, U.S. naval air operations will still rely substantially on aircraft in the meantime,...
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