Top Gun Pilot Matthew ‘Whiz’ Buckley on the new F-47 Fighter Jet: ‘It’s Mindblowing’

EXCERPT:

BUCKLEY: “Let me lead with this, Connell. It’s always a little nostalgic with an announcement like this. When I flew the F-18, it was a four and a half generation fighter. I thought the 5th gens were pretty cool. Now we got 6th gen, man. This is — this is mind-blowing. I think the last fighter pilot is probably in grade school. We’re like Knights of the Round Table. We’ve moved from being fighter pilots to systems monitors. This F-47, just incredible stealth technology, weapon systems and communication systems. So, the fighter pilot is getting less and less out of the cockpit and you’re turning into more of a system monitor. But the technology is eye-watering. Based on the limited amount of information I know, this really is the next generation fighter. And the pilots are actually becoming less and less involved in the process. Some of the technology you just sit there and watch these airplanes go to work. And to really creep people out, these airplanes are learning. They learn when a pilot looks at this or touches this switch and they use that for future use. So, the F-47 announcement today with the president and Boeing, probably going to be the end of manned aviation as we know it in the near future.”