What decides whether a fighter is single or double seat? Why do some designs like a Javelin split the work between two men while a Starfighter or Delta Dagger only needs one man?
All-weather interceptors tended to be large, two-seat aircraft because the tasks of navigation and radar monitoring were demanding.
>>65379213Sexo delta Javelin.
>>65379213>>65379245>navigation and radar monitoringYes it depends (depended) on the technology of the time. Early night fighters of World War II were 2- or 3-seaters. The F-4 Phantom II was designed in the late 1950s 'missile age' of fighters, at which time the weapons industry and mil strategists forecast that future air battles would be fought with missiles/radar; so the Phantom II had a back-seater. Radar equipment and electronics of that era required large amounts of space and weight in the airframe, and mid '50s designs like the F-106 (single seat interceptor that was integrated with the MA-1 fire control system and SAGE ground command) had huge vacuum tube installations.
>>65379711With AI increasingly able to calculate and manage systems, mayhaps any manned fighters of the future will be single seat only.
>>65379760AI has nothing to do with it. The actual root cause is that computers and digital displays means you can have two or three screens show the same information as dozens and dozens of dials and indicators.
>>65379760Realistically AI enables unmanned aircraft to be operated by a single flight of two people; one pilot, one commander.
>>65379213Treading the line between "delta" and "flying wing."
>>65379213Task and workload requirements. Can one man operate all of the gizmos?As >>65379711 pointed out, the F-102/106 offloaded a lot of the work onto ground controllers. The Mudhen beat out the XL in part because the job of flying while operating the sensors and deploying smartbombs was considered too hefty with mid-80s tech for one man to safely perform under stress. That's also why the F-18F is not a trainer variant, but an actual combat-coded plane.Going in the other direction, HOTAS and better radar controls were what allowed the F-15A to drop the F-4's WSO. Improved automation of tasks allowed the F-35 to operate with one seat. And, going back farther, the A-1 was originally designed to replace both dive bombers (2-man crew) and torpedo bombers (3-man crew) with a single pilot who did everything, thanks to improvements in crew workload (and doctrinally replacing tail gunners with faster bombers and fighter escorts).
Two seater fighters had a RIO, radar intercept officer, who would guide the nose radar and maintain a lock on targets for semi active guidance and other long range munitions. With fighters the pilot could notch and the RIO would guide the missile in.
>>65379213>single or double seat?bigger plane/ship/tank = more pilots to manage the burden of responsiblity.they won't even let you have more than 19 seats for single-pilot operations
>>65383667Cargo planes with unjammable drone drops and all passengers controlling one. 128-man bomber on a C130.
>>65379213Longer flights require in flight...entertainment.
Pilots who flew repeated missions in single-seat night fighters like the F6F-5N must have been true elites.
>>65379213>>65383657Some armed forces also have a two-man protocol on anything that can launch the extra spicy bombs.
>>65384759you forgot carrier-based
also (for newer example) contrast the U.S. F-14 and F-15, designed and adopted at approximately the same time for Navy and Air Force, had a different set of design mission specifications and equipment fits. USAF required a single-seat fighter. In the modern (post-1950s) era it came down to how the original mil procurement mission specification was structured, and the technology for it designed/acquired around that.The later USAF F-15E, as a strike fighter, had permanent second seat added because of the air-to-ground weapon systems.
What decides whether a fighter is single or double seatusually mutli role is 2 seat.intercepter/light attack single seat.it depends on the role and weapon used.all tv guided and laser require eye ball on the target.and weapon systems officer can make faster choices then the pilot. but it all depends on missionremeber extra weight and mission load out is a thing.
Sea Vixen because the guy in the coal hole doesn't need to see out.
