Yeah, Huggy said person, which excludes the need for a WSO..

Mover and Gonky discussed this with the F-15EX

My druthers is to provide a place for them to land that seems more logical and to retrain some for the right seat with pilot wings.

F-7 & F-15EX with GIBs to control CCAs, B-21 with attached UPT program…

The only reason the EX has a backseat is due to the relative ease/cost of using the already existent tooling, etc. It’s not because any non-WSOs thought there was a WSO necessity. That said, writing on the wall says the AF may go the way of the Navy/USMC - “single seat” and “dual seat” squadrons with the same basic aircraft type. It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out while enjoying my tray table.

Back on the B-21 topic I think we should all keep in mind that we’re probably only getting 50 of these things (if we’re lucky) so the question here is how comfortable are you trusting a very limited strategic asset to a single pilot? Bomber pilots will all tell you these long duration sorties really wear you down and little mistakes creep in as the fatigue gets worse. The airlines have figured this out too and they operate with a far higher degree of automation than most military jets.

I know our fighter brethren are all high SA giga-chad superheroes who can do everything themselves but with all due respect if you haven’t flown a sortie over 24 hours un-augmented, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You need two pilots on this plane unless you’re comfortable putting them into the ground on a semi regular basis.

9 hours ago, Pooter said:

Back on the B-21 topic I think we should all keep in mind that we’re probably only getting 50 of these things (if we’re lucky) so the question here is how comfortable are you trusting a very limited strategic asset to a single pilot? Bomber pilots will all tell you these long duration sorties really wear you down and little mistakes creep in as the fatigue gets worse. The airlines have figured this out too and they operate with a far higher degree of automation than most military jets.

I know our fighter brethren are all high SA giga-chad superheroes who can do everything themselves but with all due respect if you haven’t flown a sortie over 24 hours un-augmented, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You need two pilots on this plane unless you’re comfortable putting them into the ground on a semi regular basis.

50? Most of the chatter I’ve seen is for 200 or more

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/why-the-u-s-needs-200-b-21-raider-stealth-bombers-not-100/#:~:text=Mark%20Gunzinger%20and%20colleagues%20advocate%20for%20more,build%20a%20nearly%20400%2Dstrong%20strategic%20bomber%20force.

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/why-the-u-s-air-force-needs-300-or-more-b-21-raider-stealth-bombers/

Granted if there is a way to f up an acquisition process going mostly smoothly, the AF is the GOAT but it seems we will get more not less.

Concur on your point on long duration sorties

12 hours ago, brabus said:

The only reason the EX has a backseat is due to the relative ease/cost of using the already existent tooling, etc. It’s not because any non-WSOs thought there was a WSO necessity. That said, writing on the wall says the AF may go the way of the Navy/USMC - “single seat” and “dual seat” squadrons with the same basic aircraft type. It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out while enjoying my tray table.

Maybe but I’d like to try before we buy, fly off and testing the cognitive load and tasking in representative scenarios should be done if it is not already being done