The Air Force is hoping to pit an autonomous drone equipped with an artificial intelligence-driven flight control system against a fighter jet with a human pilot in a little over a year. The service has described this effort in the past as a "big moonshot" that could revolutionize air-to-air combat in ways that have so far been limited to the realm of fiction - at least as far as we know. The drones would also likely be cheaper to build and maintain than manned fighter jets and, networked together into swarms, might not have to perform all missions equally well. In an air-to-air scenario, some might carry a powerful radar or an infrared search and track (IRST) system or other sensors to spot and track threats, while others, acting as missile trucks, would then engage those targets.