The Director General of the russian State Research Institute of Aviation Systems (GosNIIAS), Sergey Khokhlov, announced to journalists at the Army-2024 forum that their new sixth-generation fighter will be developed as an optionally piloted aircraft.
Specifically, as reported by russian propaganda media, this means a manned aircraft that can also operate in an unmanned mode. "We are considering our experience and the development of various technologies; it will be a kind of symbiosis between manned and unmanned aviation," Khokhlov stated.
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Thus, it took russia three years to decide whether their next aircraft will be manned or unmanned.
And that the parties could not reach an agreement because they claimed that "the global aviation community has not yet determined this issue," which is a blatant lie, as all modern Western sixth-generation aircraft programs specifically consider the requirement for these planes to be optionally piloted, meaning the ability to operate both with a pilot in the cockpit and autonomously.
In this story, it's worth noting that, according to the CEO of GosNIAS, russia is in no rush to develop a new aircraft and has yet to set a timeline for the arrival of a sixth-generation plane.
Here, the timeline will likely be no less than 20 years.
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