Yeah, I think that this will be more useful for training purposes than actually using it as an armed drone, so an F-16 pilot can dogfight another F-16 and actually go full 'fangs out' so to speak without having to explain to his CO why he just killed another USAF pilot.
Of course, it loses a little in the fact that the drone can't actually shoot back properly, and although there is a vast stockpile of dry-bones aircraft in the desert, I can't see the USAF being content to burn through it in a large way, although aircraft like the old F-4s which are probably a bit too long in the tooth for any major conflict of the future might find themselves as drones.
There's also the decoy side of it, remember in Red Storm Rising when the carrier group got spoofed by some Kelt missiles? Meant that the F-14 cover spent precious minutes and fuel chasing shadows and were out of position for the real attack. It would be difficult without the proper intercept equipment to know which aircraft were drones and which were not, and that's assuming that the drones are unarmed. You slap weapons on them and you've got a much bigger USAF than there currently is.
Of course, as it stands, you still need the pilots to fly them, albeit from a hut rather than the cockpit, but it's still roughly one UAV to one pilot, IIRC, certainly in a dogfight situation.
So, Skybird is correct, the next logical step is autonomous drones, and I'm pretty certain that this is already being worked on, and when that happens then the risk of drone control intercept is closed, and the human oversight that is needed is reduced, so you could have one pilot for an entire squadron. At this point the boneyards become a very busy place and the numbers game starts to change in a big way.
And/or Skynet...
